McAdam: Without his best fastball, Eduardo Rodriguez still manages a win

Nearly a month into the start of the 2021 Red Sox season, it seems almost quaint that, at the end of spring training, there were concerns about what the club could expect from Eduardo Rodriguez.

At the time, the fretting seemed entirely justified. After all, Rodriguez had missed all of 2020 with a double wallop of COVID-19 and a resulting case of myocarditis. Neither was insignificant, especially given how little the medical community currently understands about the long-term impact of those who contract the virus.

Then, to make matters more problematic, Rodriguez experienced arm fatigue in the final two weeks of the Grapefruit League, knocking him out of his planned Opening Day assignment. For someone who hadn't pitched in a real game since September 2019, this was alarming.

But after sitting out the first six games of the season, Rodriguez took his first turn in Baltimore and hasn't looked back since. On Sunday, with the team's bullpen panting a bit from its recent workload, Rodriguez affixed the Sox to his back and lugged them through seven mostly carefree innings, walking none and striking out eight.

In five of his seven innings, he retired the Seattle Mariners in order; in another inning, he stranded a leadoff double. He finished with a flourish, retiring the final nine hitters he faced.

"That,'' concluded Alex Cora, "is what aces do.''

Rodriguez needed just 98 pitches to get through his seven innings, and that efficiency was both welcome and ironic. It wasn't long ago that Rodriguez was the personification of a "nibbler,'' often either unwilling or incapable of filling up the zone.

That seems like a bygone era, and Rodriguez could serve as the poster child for what Cora has exhorted his staff to focus on this season: attack the strike zone. The best measure of well Rodriguez has done that lies in his lopsided strikeout-to-walk ratio: 26-to-2. That might not be as cartoonish as Milwaukee's Corbin Burnes' 40-0, but it will more than do from where the Red Sox sit.



The wonder is that Rodriguez pored through the Seattle lineup with something far less than his usual fastball. The lefty discovered in his pre-game bullpen that his fastball lacked its usual zip, but didn't panic -- proof that, now 28, Rodriguez has fully evolved into a pitcher rather than a thrower.

"When I got to the bullpen,'' he said, "I found I didn't have that much power today. But I felt like my command (of the fastball) was really good, so we stayed with it. At the start of my career, that's when I would have tried to throw hard and that's when I gave up more runs because you miss your spots. But I learned from my teammates, the old guys -- (Rick) Porcello, (Chris) Sale and DP (David Price) that even if you don't have that power with your fastball, you just try to locate whatever you have.

"That's how I did it today. I knew my fastball wasn't there, so I just tried to locate my fastball right where me and (catcher Christian Vazquez) wanted.''

Working with a fastball that sat mostly at 91-92 mph, Rodriguez diligently carved up the Mariners, all the while not allowing a single free pass. Of the four doubles he allowed among his six hits, three were little more than well-placed ground balls that happened to be hit where Boston fielders weren't.

If the velocity wasn't where he would have preferred, Rodriguez made up for it with something nearly as valuable -- belief in himself.

"I know I can go out there every pitch with the confidence to have success with everything I throw,'' he said. "That's what I think is the biggest improvement.''

With or without his four-seamer at full strength, the Red Sox should know by now that they can rely on Rodriguez to eat up innings. He's gone five or more innings in each one of his last 32 starts. And when they provide him with at least four runs, Rodriguez knows what to do with the opportunity -- the Sox are 39-2 in the last such 41 outings.

"That's the goal of a starting pitcher,'' said Rodriguez of the desire to go deep into games. "I think I learned the hard way because I was going 4.2 innings, four innings most of the time back in the day. I have to say thanks to those veterans who were here with me and one still here, which is Sale. They helped me a lot and pushed me all the time, and even AC, those guys helped me to get to this point.

"As a starter, you gotta go out there and try to give (length). The goal is seven innings; finishing games is a big goal for everybody. But being able to go more than five (on a consistent basis), has been a really big jump for me.''