Eduardo Rodriguez called up
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Maybe a bit amped up against his former team? Missing high and away usually means he was opening up that front shoulder too early and his arm was dragging through the zone.Darnell's Son said:
Have to wonder if there were some jitters involved with facing his previous (and first) organization last night.Darnell's Son said:
Edro's third start showed some command problems: he didn't hit the edges as often, and there is a large cluster of middle-middle pitches, along with the usual middle-outside. His fastball velocity is so good (average 94.8 mph) that he got away with it. He sustained his velocity with minimal dropoff; in fact, his last pitch was 97 mph. His changeup command was excellent: of 12 changeups thrown, only 1 ended up in the strike zone.
I was actually more encouraged by last night's start than the previous 2 starts. Sure, he did not have his best stuff compared to his first 2 outings but he battled through every tough spot he had and still did not allow any runs. I'd argue that there were less than 5 balls put in play that were considered hard contact. He made pitches when he had to. The strikeouts of Young and Jones in the 5th with 2 guys on is an example of his toughness and willingness to challenge hitters with men on base. A player can learn so much more when they struggle then when everything is working and results are coming easy. Rodriguez is a stud.
Exactly. The first two starts showed his upside, which is encouraging, of course, but something we all knew was there from his minor league stats, scouting, etc. What we didn't know was how he would do when he didn't have his good command, stuff, when hitters got a little bit of a book on him, when men were on base more often, when he had multiple tough innings. As the beginning of the season showed, limiting bad innings is just as important as getting 1-2-3s. If this is a bad EdRod start (and let's be honest, he's eventually going to throw an actual stinker, but let's call this a 30th percentile start or something), that makes an exceedingly good pitcher.RedOctober3829 said:
O Captain! My Captain! said:
And wouldn't the Orioles be more likely than any other team to have a book on him?
JimBoSox9 said:
They thought he was "only" worth two months of Andrew Miller, so maybe they didn't understand his stuff/upside after all, I think that is what he is implying....
snowmanny said:
Well, I thought I was going to have to explain why thinking of that trade as evidence of Baltimore's disregard for Eduardo is simple-minded, but I see you've come around! Wonderful. Last year, the O's thought they had a real shot at a real postseason run, and they thought Miller was the guy most likely to give them the marginal win down the stretch to get them there. It's just as likely Boston used their leverage to extract someone Baltimore didn't want to see go, as it is the latter thinking they got a deal by unloading a non-prospect. Showalter said as much in his remarks yesterday or this afternoon.
I'm sure they knew they were unloading a real prospect, but did they know how good a prospect they were unloading? I think no. Heck, there's at least a case to be made that they would have been better off trading Gausman who was not even on the table. I think that if they could take that one back they abolutely would.JimBoSox9 said:
I think they knew exactly how good he was, but they were also messing around with him mechanically to slow down his change-up and it wasn't going all that well. The first thing the Sox did upon acquiring him was let him go back to his old mechanics, and what we've seen from him thus far was more or less the immediate result.Eddie Jurak said:
So it was simply a matter of good timing to have the deal come together at the exact point where Rodriguez was struggling the most (relative to past and future results) and the O's were perhaps down on him a bit.
Eddie Jurak said:
By this, do you mean a prospect who would go on to put up an incredibly hot first 20 innings in the big leagues? No, I think armed with that knowledge they probably still bite the pillow and make the deal. Do you mean a prospect who will go on to put up a career sub-2 ERA as a SP? No, I think they understand there's going to be some regression around the corner.
Of course there was a case to be made, there was a case to be made last year too, and I'm sure someone made it before they decided to move Eduardo. Folks who make it up the ladder in front offices aren't inclined to have decision-making crises of confidence over 3 starts, superlative as they may have been. It's easy to 'win' a deal with leverage regardless of whether or not the other guy knows he's getting the sucker's end.
Sprowl said:New pitchFX pastry: the Edronut.
And the donut expands to a cruller vs. RHH. Edro kept it up and in or down and away, avoiding a large northeast-to-southwest swath across the middle of the zone where righties can extend and drive the ball:
Bosoxen said:
Truly homegrown? I suppose not. But in my opinion the Sox found something that needed changing or developing in Rodriguez, as in the Orioles system he was posting a 4.79 ERA in AA in 2014 and 4.22 the prior year in AA. Upon coming to Boston, I remember reading there was a notable uptick in Rodriguez' velocity, and more importantly, his results - 0.79 ERA in Portland and then 2.98 this year in Pawtucket.
So no, the team did not draft him but I don't think it was random chance that his performance totally took off when he got into the Sox system.
At least to me, if they came as a "prospect" and spent time in the farm system before an appearance on the big club, they're homegrown.
I don't know if there's an actual definition as to what constitutes a "homegrown" talent by MLB standards so it's subjective until then. The purest form obviously being a player that was drafted and moved up through the system... Eddie is sort of an equivalent to buying a starter plant rather than from seed
I don't know if there's an actual definition as to what constitutes a "homegrown" talent by MLB standards so it's subjective until then. The purest form obviously being a player that was drafted and moved up through the system... Eddie is sort of an equivalent to buying a starter plant rather than from seed
I think between Arrieta Hammel and Tillman to a lesser extent the Orioles can identify good pitching talent but for whatever reason has trouble developing it. On the other hand Boston seems to be able to get the most out of their young pitchers. So it's really not that surprising that this occurred to a degree. No one thought Eddie could be a potential ace. Even if he settles into a #2 or #3 role that's still an ace on this team.
Today, Ian York looked at Eduardo's fastball velocity and pitch selection to see how he returned to dominance after having a bad fourth start:
http://sonsofsamhorn.com/baseball/teams/al-east/boston-red-sox/how-eduardo-rodriguez-got-his-groove-back/
http://sonsofsamhorn.com/baseball/teams/al-east/boston-red-sox/how-eduardo-rodriguez-got-his-groove-back/
Even the bad outing could/should have been much better than 9 ER. He had those two high pop-ups that we lost in the sun that had to be ruled hits.....I believe one scored a run then a HR by the following batter scored two more. It wasn't like he had completely lost it for one day even though he wasn't great.....he had a ton of bad luck in that game too.ivanvamp said:
Those whom BABIP wishes to destroy, He first makes wild in the strike zone, like Edro today, who grooved more pitches and hung more sliders than a Greek tragic figure. His nemesis was his own error, a throw to first base in the dirt, followed by Wieters' opposite-field home run.
His location was pretty poor in the first three innings, but he got away with it. In the fourth, he didn't. This is not a donut, it's a timbit:
Speculation came up during the game thread that he was tipping his offspeed pitches, because his sliders were getting hammered in the fourth inning. Whether they guessed well or planned well, the Orioles had studied up on Edro.
His location was pretty poor in the first three innings, but he got away with it. In the fourth, he didn't. This is not a donut, it's a timbit:
Speculation came up during the game thread that he was tipping his offspeed pitches, because his sliders were getting hammered in the fourth inning. Whether they guessed well or planned well, the Orioles had studied up on Edro.
This is interesting (and provides some hope) -- Willis says that Rodriguez was obviously tipping pitches out of the stretch.
Brian McPherson just posted a bunch of tweets showing the tip off for the slider vs fastball.
I'll just post the link to his twitter since there are 5+ tweets.
https://twitter.com/brianmacp
I'll just post the link to his twitter since there are 5+ tweets.
https://twitter.com/brianmacp
I'm really disappointed in us. WE used to be the ones who caught pitchers tipping their pitches.
I was at the game, and it was a very, very good outing! My quibble would be that he had a really hard time throwing the change for strikes, so it was pretty easy to lay off of. But when he needed to get through the fat part of the order (which with the Jays, is about 6 batters deep - scary lineup!), he was able to dial up to 95. EdRod was pretty well in control the whole time he was out there.
He didn't have his plus slider, that's true, but he pounded the strike zone with excellent velocity (fastball 94-97, average 95.7), and his changeup was reliably outside the zone, but close enough to chase (21 changeups, 7 whiffs). The strikezone plot shows that Edro knows to which quadrant he's throwing his fastball. Mistakes with the slider looks like an ongoing weakness.
Sports on Earth reprint of Alex Skillin's BP Boston piece on the man with the 2nd fastest fastball of any lefthander in the majors, behind only Chris Sale:
http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/134484568/eduardo-rodriguez-red-sox-youth-movement
http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/134484568/eduardo-rodriguez-red-sox-youth-movement
Don Buddin's GS said:
That's a good write-up, identifying long-standing issues with pitching from the stretch, as well as the difficulty of getting through the order the third time around, which Skillin attributes to only adequate secondary pitches.
The changeup might become better than adequate; I'm not so optimistic about the slider because Edro grooves it too often. Against the Astros, he threw a lot more changeups -- 29, 24 of them to RHB. LHB still get mostly the heat: 33 fastballs, 5 changeups and 8 sliders, but against the RHB he changed speeds often, and in the third and fourth inning threw more offspeed pitches than fastballs:
He couldn't command the changeup well enough to get the Astros to chase, and it may be lacking in deception, but it has not been hit often or hard. The downside is that heavy use of offspeed pitches raised Edro's pitch count, and he lasted only five innings
Edro's latest start against the Yankees returned to the basics: 79 of 95 pitches were fastballs, averaging 95.6 and peaking at 97.9. That is a lot of consistent heat in the strike zone. Reduced reliance on the offspeed pitches was probably encouraged by A-Rod's home run in the first inning off a particularly fat changeup right down the middle. Thereafter, Edro and Hanigan seem to have resolved that if he was going to be beaten, he would be beaten on his best pitch, the fastball.
Although usage of the changeup and slider were both down sharply, Edro added a new wrinkle -- three sinkers, averaging 95 mph but moving more like his changeup. Each one of them was thrown well outside the strike zone, so it is conceivable that he simply misdelivered the pitch, but all three came against Teixeira, and two of them came on pitches 2 and 3 to Teixeira in the 7th inning (Edro's last batter). It appears that Edro and Hanigan wanted to show Teixeira a different kind of movement, hoping he might chase, but definitely giving him another pitch to think about.
Edro may yet have more than three pitches to play with.
Although usage of the changeup and slider were both down sharply, Edro added a new wrinkle -- three sinkers, averaging 95 mph but moving more like his changeup. Each one of them was thrown well outside the strike zone, so it is conceivable that he simply misdelivered the pitch, but all three came against Teixeira, and two of them came on pitches 2 and 3 to Teixeira in the 7th inning (Edro's last batter). It appears that Edro and Hanigan wanted to show Teixeira a different kind of movement, hoping he might chase, but definitely giving him another pitch to think about.
Edro may yet have more than three pitches to play with.
I didn't see the game. Did he really give up 8 hits on basically 8 pitches. Maybe he was tipping?
Might have been, but he was also throwing the ball straight down the middle which certainly didn't help.Scott Cooper said:
It seems like virtually all of the damage against Edro has come in a handful of bad innings. Is that unusual?
Remy called the pitch tipping again then when Farrell was questioned by reporters if this was an issue today he responded (paraphrasing), "No, we took care of that in side sessions. That isn't an issue any longer." I'm still waiting for one of the reporters to ask the follow up "That's interesting to hear since Remy was calling the pitches in the booth while Eddie was come-set. Your thoughts on that John?"Bob Montgomery's Helmet Hat said:
