GOODYEAR, Ariz. – Colorado Rockies pitchers implode from a disease for which there is no known cure.

“Rocky Mountain Fever,” manager Bud Black told me, bestowing an official name to an affliction that’s almost entirely between a pitcher’s ears but 100 percent real and dangerous.

This disease is the No. 1 cause of death for the championship hopes of a major league franchise that has never won a division title, much less the World Series, in its 32 years of existence.

So here’s a tip of the cap to left-handed pitcher Kyle Freeland, a Denver native born shortly after the Rockies played their first game in 1993.

With one of baseball’s most hazardous jobs, K-Free is boldly going to a place no Rockies pitcher has ever been.

The immortal Cy Young set a big-league record way back in 1911 that has stood for more than a century and likely won’t be broken in the next 100 years with 815 starts as a pitcher.

But the mighty Cy never had to deal with the mind-messing nightmare of pitching at altitude. Later this spring, probably a little before his 32nd birthday in May, Freeland will set a franchise record by making his 207th start, breaking the franchise mark of Aaron Cook.

And it will be no small feat.

“Pitching at Coors Field is definitely something that constantly weighs on you both mentally and physically,” said Freeland, the odds-on favorite to take the mound on March 28, when Colorado opens the regular season in Tampa against the Rays.

Only the strong survive on the bump in Colorado, pitching at 5,280 feet above sea level, where curveballs lack their natural snap and any solid crack of the bat can lose a home run over the outfield fence.

And know what’s worse? Even the strongest-willed hurlers seldom survive in Denver, where a shelled and shocked pitcher can have the shelf life of a banana.

“What did Bud Black call it?” Rockies owner Dick Monfort asked me, as we watched veteran Cincinnati reliever Bryan Shaw try to hold down a job with his fifth team since getting battered for a 5.61 earned run average in a two-year stint with the Rockies that ended in 2018. “Was it Rocky Mountain Fever? Well, I think Shaw got it when he was with our team.”

Black, who started 296 games as a pitcher in the majors from 1981-95, has seen the look in the eyes of Colorado pitchers that silently shouts they don’t ever again want the ball in LoDo.

“Full disclosure, there have been guys in my tenure here that (the ballpark) has gotten them,” Black said. “They get Rocky Mountain Fever.”

Is there any antidote?

“No,” Black said. “It’s over.”

There’s only so much of the abuse that Coors Field dishes out to pitchers that most reasonable men can take.

Cook, who won 76 times in a Colorado uniform from 2002-11, is the lone starting pitcher that has had the mental fortitude to endure a decade with the Rockies.

While German Marquez is entering his 10th season with the club and is the franchise’s career strikeout leader, there’s legit concern that the rigors of fending off the onset of Rocky Mountain Fever has taken a heavy toll on his 30-year-old body. An injury to his right arm required Tommy John surgery and has limited him to a meager 24 innings on the mound since 2023.

So what has been the secret of Freeland, ready to rock n’ roll for his ninth season with the Rockies?

How has he lived K-Free of the baseball PTSD that can destroy a pitcher’s desire to rear back and throw strikes at altitude?

It’s a Black German Shepherd named Benny.

“Good, bad or ugly, Benny is going to be there for me. When I walk in the door, my dog doesn’t care if I pitched a no-hitter or gave up 10 runs,” Freeland said.

On a sun-drenched Tuesday afternoon in the Arizona desert, Freeland struck out eight Cincy hitters and allowed two earned runs in a solid 4.2 innings of work during an exhibition game Colorado ultimately lost 8-5, when the Reds rallied for five tallies in the eighth inning.

Good stuff.

But when you pitch half your games at 5,280, it’s guaranteed that there will be some crummy days in his future.

“If I have a bad day at the office, I try to take the time to quiet my head, so by the time I get home and walk into the house, I can enjoy the time with my wife,” Freeland said.

My theory: K-Free has survived for so long in Coors Field because he was born Rocky Mountain strong.

“Born and raised in Denver. The Rockies came into existence in 1993 and I came into existence a month later. Grew up watching them. Love this organization. Forever grateful,” Freeland said. “And it’s going to make that much sweeter when we get back to where we want to be: In the playoffs and trying to win the World Series.”

He probably won’t ever win a Cy Young award.

But in honor of taking those inevitable lickings in LoDo, yet keep on ticking, somebody in the Rockies organization should award Freeland with baseball’s version of the purple heart.