SAN FRANCISCO -- Grayson Rodriguez left Oracle Park with the kind of line that says one thing and the pitcher himself saying another.
The numbers were rough in Friday night’s 7-6, 10-inning loss to the Giants: four innings, five runs allowed, six hits, two walks. His ERA climbed to 8.54 in nine starts this season. But Rodriguez said the outing still represented a step forward in the work he’s trying to do to get back on track.
“My delivery was much better,” Rodriguez said. “The line doesn't really show any progress to be made, but for me, this was a big week in getting back into a delivery that I had in '24 and the bullpen leading up to this was good.
And then tonight, I felt like I did those things right. I felt like my stuff played better.”
That’s the tension with Rodriguez right now: the results still aren’t there, but he believes the process is moving in the right direction. He hasn’t pitched in the Majors since July 31, 2024, and the road back has been littered with injuries. He dealt with lat strains in both ’24 and ’25, had surgery last August to remove bone spurs from his right elbow, opened this season on the injured list with right shoulder inflammation, returned in mid-May, then missed another month after a lower back strain in mid-June.
He’s been back in the rotation since July 10, and it looks like he’ll keep getting chances to sort it out. If the Angels move lefty Reid Detmers or right-hander José Soriano, Rodriguez could be in line for more runway. He also has Minor League options, but for now he doesn’t appear to be in immediate danger of a trip down.
“Obviously, I'm pretty upset about that outing,” Rodriguez said. “It sucks.
It’s been tough because this is not how I pitch, and this is not the standard that I hold myself to. But being able to take the good out of it, you just got to keep stacking it.”
The stuff is still there, even if the fastball was a little lighter than usual. Rodriguez averaged 95.1 mph with his heater, down from his season average of 96.1 mph. The problem came when he left two fastballs up in big spots, and the Giants made him pay.
Rafael Devers got to him first, crushing a two-run homer in the opening inning after Rodriguez fell behind 2-1 and left a 96.2 mph fastball in the middle of the zone. Then came Casey Schmitt’s three-run blast in the third, a 96.3 mph fastball on the inner part of the plate that blew the game open after the Angels had intentionally walked Devers with two outs.
Manager Kurt Suzuki saw the same thing Rodriguez did: some mistakes got punished, but there were also signs of life in the secondary stuff.
“Obviously, a couple balls that he left up in the zone were mistakes that got hit,” Suzuki said. “You're getting away with those things when you're going good.
Right now, the mistakes are getting hit. But his offspeed stuff was a lot better tonight.
He threw some good sliders, some better changeups, so there's a lot of positives in there.”
Rodriguez did manage to limit the damage beyond the home runs, helped by two double plays. But he still had trouble putting hitters away, needing 80 pitches to get through four innings and throwing first-pitch strikes to only four of the 18 batters he faced.
“Being a starting pitcher, you got to be efficient,” Rodriguez said. “And throwing first-pitch strikes is a big part of that.”
The Angels gave him support at the plate, too. They scored four runs against Giants ace Logan Webb, with Zach Neto opening the night with a leadoff triple and Tyler Heineman adding a two-run triple during a three-run fifth inning.
Vaughn Grissom later tied it with a two-run homer off Jason Foley in the eighth after Kirby Yates had allowed a run in the seventh. But the Angels couldn’t finish in the final two innings. Oswald Peraza was thrown out at third in the 10th while trying to tag up on a fly ball to center fielder Grant McCray, and the game ended on a walk-off single by Devers off Chase Silseth.
“Devers is getting paid $300 million to do that,” Suzuki said. “It was a tough night.”
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