Kevin Gausman will take the mound Wednesday afternoon for the Toronto Blue Jays at Coors Field, a ballpark he knows exceedingly well.

While most opposing pitchers come to Denver wondering exactly how the elevation might impact their pitches and conditioning routines, Gausman relies on his memories as a kid growing up in Centennial and pitching for Aurora’s Grandview High School.

“It’s just different here. It really is,” Gausman told The Denver Gazette from inside the Toronto clubhouse on Tuesday. “And it’s not necessarily the pitching and the pitch metrics and stuff, but just how you feel. It takes a couple of days.”

Gausman, who now lives in Louisiana in the offseason, then had to pause, realizing he was talking about the effects of elevation like a true sea-level resident.

“I never really believed that. But now, the more I’ve been away, and coming back, it’s different. Where I live in Louisiana and Toronto, it’s like everywhere we go is pretty much on the water,” he said.

While it may feel different now, the Denver area will always be home for Gausman, who was selected fourth overall by the Baltimore Orioles in the 2012 MLB draft. The connection to Colorado and Gausman’s current life was amplified a bit more Monday night when Cherry Creek’s Wyatt Rudden was presented with the inaugural Roy Halladay Award, signifying Colorado’s top senior baseball player, scholar and community steward, before the Rockies and Blue Jays began their three-game series.

Not only was Halladay another Colorado high school pitcher drafted in the first round; he also spent 12 seasons pitching for Toronto, the team that now employs Gausman.

“Roy was my guy growing up. He was the guy that I looked at. There weren’t many of us (coming out of Colorado), so it was kind of like, ‘If he can do it, maybe I can,’” Gausman said. “I think about watching him and his bulldog mentality. Now I’ve been lucky enough to play for the organization that he stamped his career in. It’s been really cool to hear all the Roy Halladay stories in Toronto.”

The Blue Jays retired Halladay’s “32” in 2018, the season after he died in a plane crash at the age of 40. In honor of Halladay, Gausman wears 34, the number Halladay wore when he pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies for four seasons.

Halladay left a deep legacy north of the border, and Gausman is trying to do the same. Now in his fourth season in Toronto, the right-hander has posted a 3.55 ERA over 669.1 innings in his Blue Jays career heading into his Wednesday start.

“If you know anything about Colorado baseball, it hasn’t always been a hotbed here,” Gausman said. “With that, I think it just makes it that much more special to see what’s happening here today. I do think the game is a lot better here than it was when I was in high school, and you’re seeing more guys sign at bigger schools and get drafted.

“I think the talent is here and it’s coming into the big leagues, so that’s cool to see.”

On Wednesday, Gausman will square off against Colorado’s Kyle Freeland, another Denver-area high schooler taken in the first round. It will be Gausman’s sixth career start at Coors Field, a place where he has logged a 3.95 ERA over 27.1 innings and struck out 37 Colorado batters.

“It’s always fun to come back and play, being from 30 minutes down the street,” Gausman smiled.

Gausman admits Coors Field wasn’t a place where he spent a lot of time growing up. As the youngest of three children, Gausman said there were plenty of sporting events that took up family time. However, there was one player who drew him to 20th and Blake when Gausman was throwing for Grandview.

“I was a huge Ubaldo Jimenez fan,” Gausman said. “When I was in high school, I might sneak away and maybe miss class to come downtown to see a game. Especially when Ubaldo was pitching really well, I definitely tried to get to the games he was starting.”

For now, though, there are family members and friends to see as Gausman visits Coors Field for the first time in two seasons. It’s a short trip filled with things to do, people to see and games to win, which Toronto needs him to do Wednesday as they try to hold off the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees in the American League East.

“There’s a lot of people to see, but it’s once every two years,” Gausman smiled. “Knowing that, you can make it all work.”