ANAHEIM -- Kurt Suzuki isn’t ready to make a big deal out of Grayson Rodriguez’s latest rough night.
The Angels manager is preaching patience with the right-hander, who is still trying to find his footing in a season that has already been interrupted by injuries and delayed by a long layoff from the majors. Rodriguez’s latest start came Saturday in a 7-0 loss to the Tigers at Angel Stadium, and it followed a familiar script: early trouble, a big hole, then a few cleaner innings once the damage was already done.
Rodriguez allowed six runs on seven hits, hit two batters and walked one over four innings. Detroit did most of its work right away, scoring four times in the first and twice more in the second. Spencer Torkelson’s three-run homer was the big blow in the opening frame, and by the time Rodriguez settled in, the Angels were already buried.
“We've got to remember that he didn't pitch at all last year,” manager Kurt Suzuki said. “And this year, he’s been injured a little bit.
He's probably shaking some rust off. So, I think the more games he gets, the more innings he gets under his belt, I think you'll see the sharpness and the consistency come back.”
That patience comes with context. Rodriguez missed all of last season because of injury and had bone spurs removed from his right elbow last August. He opened this year on the injured list with right shoulder inflammation, made his debut in mid-May, then went back on the shelf with a back strain that sidelined him from mid-June until his return against the Twins on July 10.
Saturday was just his second start since coming off the IL, and the early results were ugly. He gave up a leadoff double to Kevin McGonigle, then hit Dillon Dingler with a 1-1 fastball. Colt Keith followed with an RBI single, and Torkelson crushed a first-pitch heater down the middle for a three-run shot that put the Angels in a deep early hole.
“I was just leaving balls over the middle of the plate early,” Rodriguez said. “I can't do that in the big leagues. It’s happened more times than I wanted to this year, but it’s just what happens when you really can't show good offspeed stuff in the zone and they just kind of key in on fastballs.”
The second inning didn’t clean things up much. Rodriguez allowed back-to-back singles, then hit Dingler again to load the bases. He limited the damage from there, but sacrifice flies by Keith and Riley Greene pushed the Tigers’ lead to six and left the Angels staring at Tarik Skubal with almost no margin.
Rodriguez did show a little more control after that. He allowed only a throwing error by second baseman Vaughn Grissom in the third, then gave up two hits with two outs in the fourth before getting Greene to fly out to center and finishing his outing after 87 pitches.
In eight starts this season, Rodriguez has an 8.23 ERA with 27 strikeouts and 17 walks in 35 innings. The Angels traded for him in the offseason, sending outfielder Taylor Ward to Baltimore, betting on his upside and the fact that he remains under team control through 2029. Rodriguez had a 4.11 ERA in 43 career starts with the Orioles, so the club is still looking at the bigger picture.
Rodriguez said he’s trying to stay locked in through the rough patches.
“It's been a little bit harder than I thought it would be getting back into a full season,” Rodriguez said. “You just got to keep going after it. There's going to be one outing where it clicks, and then we'll be able to stack them from there, and that's what I'm looking forward to.”
He added: “I’m just fighting every day and trying to go out there and give my team everything I have,” Rodriguez said. “There's going to be a start where it just clicks, and I hope it's soon. But until then, you just got to keep at it, and you got to keep putting in the work, trust your pitches and lean on your team.”
Catcher Logan O’Hoppe said the stuff is there, but the common thread in the tougher outings has been falling behind and not landing the secondary pitches as strikes often enough.
“I feel like the tougher outings have the same common themes,” O’Hoppe said. “It's getting behind in counts and the secondary pitches not being as much of strike pitches as we want. I thought his stuff looked fine and he stayed pretty composed for how it went.”
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