Grayson Rodrigues didn't have a good start, but he gave the Los Angeles Angels hope that he can contribute.
Los Angeles Angels right-hander Grayson Rodriguez didn’t have a good start, but he did have a good day. Rodriguez got whacked around by the Los Angeles Dodgers to the tune of seven earned runs in 3-2/3 innings, but the loss was trumped by the fact that he was even back on the mound at all after spending the last two years rehabbing from a variety of injuries.
The results weren’t totally unexpected given how rusty Rodriguez is, and he was able to pinpoint the specific problem.
“With rehab and stuff, there were a lot of dark days, so today was special for me just to be able to take the mound on a big league field,” said Rodriguez in a followup piece written by Rhett Bollinger of MLB,com. “It came down to leaving offspeed pitches up. I thought I threw some really good pitches. That’s a really good lineup, but in big spots with runners on base, off-speed pitches were left up, they were able to put the bat on the ball and score some runs.”
A miscue that occurred when Rodriguez was late covering first on a ground ball to first helped open the floodgates for the Dodgers in their five-run fourth inning, but this result felt inevitable given those offspeed pitches, and Rodriguez took the blame for the bad inning.
“All you can do is move on and look to the next batter,” Rodriguez said. “If I could have done a little bit better job with some pitches, we wouldn't have even been in that spot, so that's on me.”
It’s hard to focus on the bright spots given how badly the Angels are playing and how much they need good starts from guys like Rodriguez, but there were several. He struck out for hitters and got eight swings-and-misses over the course of the 79 pitches he threw, so there’s something to build on.
Rodriguez also displayed his normal velocity, as he topped out at just over 96 mph. If the Angels can keep him healthy, it could give them another starter who can at least go five innings and might even be able to give them length at some point.
“The good thing is every pitch I threw I felt great,” Rodriguez said. “I was able to reach back and get it. Coming out of that one healthy, all we can do is just look ahead and build off of it and move forward.”
Manager Kurt Suzuki has been trying to stay positive through all this, which has been getting harder by the day. He chose to focus on the potential Rodriguez offers down the line as he talked about the emotional part of this outing.
“I can only imagine his emotions of going through that start for the first time since '24,” Suzuki said. “I thought stuff was there. He had that one inning a little bit with command but overall, there were a lot of things to build on.”
