Orioles starting pitcher Grayson Rodriguez produces his best MLB start in 4-1 win over Padres – The Denver Post

With Grayson Rodriguez’s elite stuff, it’s often said he throws gas. Monday night, he showed he has plenty left in the tank.

The 23-year-old Orioles right-hander posted the best start of his major league career to open a series with the San Diego Padres, allowing a run over a career-high seven innings in a 4-1 victory to continue a run of excellence since rejoining Baltimore’s rotation last month. A dramatic ninth inning saw former Orioles star Manny Machado come up representing the tying run, but Baltimore closer Félix Bautista got him to ground into a double play to end the game.

After consistent struggles in Rodriguez’s first 10 outings prompted the Orioles (74-45) to send their top pitching prospect back to the minors, he has returned with a 3.03 ERA over six starts. He’s pitched into the sixth inning in each after doing so only once while posting a 7.35 ERA in his first big-league opportunity.

“I feel more like myself,” Rodriguez said. “That first stint in the big leagues, I don’t like to say that was me.”

The Orioles emphasized improved fastball command during Rodriguez’s return to the minors, with manager Brandon Hyde saying he saw that pitch left in the middle of the zone too often. Each of the three hits Rodriguez allowed Monday came on that pitch — including Garrett Cooper’s sixth-inning solo shot, the first home run Rodriguez has surrendered since his return — but it was likewise a dynamic weapon for him. His 38 uses of it averaged 98.9 mph, the highest for an Orioles starter since pitch tracking began in 2008. He already held the record, responsible for the top seven such outings with his past four starts being the only ones in which Baltimore’s starter averaged above 98 mph. He credited “summertime” for the uptick.

“Ever since 2019 in Low-A to Bowie to everywhere else, I think August has been my best month for [velocity], so we’re gonna keep that going,” Rodriguez said. “Hopefully, we’re gonna carry that into September and when October gets here.”

Between Triple-A Norfolk and the majors, Rodriguez has now thrown almost 20 more innings than he had in any previous season, but he seems to be heating up along with the weather.

“Just such a huge difference when he came back,” Hyde said. “Those guys did a great job down there [in Norfolk], pitching guys here, Grayson himself. Just an amazing job of the delivery’s better, it’s better tempo in the delivery, the command’s better with his fastball. He’s pitching with way more confidence.”

A 101 mph offering resulted in a comebacker to open the bottom of the first and made Rodriguez one of only eight starters with multiple pitches at that velocity this season, also hitting that mark July 17 in his first start back in the majors. After Ryan O’Hearn gave Baltimore an early lead with a solo home run off Yu Darvish, Rodriguez began the bottom of the second with a strikeout of Machado, traded away about a month after Baltimore selected Rodriguez 11th overall in the 2018 MLB draft. Machado managed to make contact in the fourth, popping up after Rodriguez struck out fellow San Diego stars Fernando Tatis Jr. and Juan Soto.

Gunnar Henderson, like Rodriguez a Baltimore rookie surging at the right time, cleared the bases with a three-run double in the fifth, giving his starter plenty of breathing room. Cooper’s home run to open the sixth ended a run of 11 straight Padres (56-63) retired by Rodriguez, but he responded by striking out San Diego’s next three batters.

Xander Bogaerts’ two-out walk in the seventh drove his pitch count up enough to prevent a possible eighth inning, but Rodriguez’s outing ended how it began — with a ground ball back to him. The second out of the frame marked the deepest Rodriguez has pitched in a game in the majors, but he was grateful for the chance to finish the seventh, completing that inning only twice in his sterling minor league career.

“Anytime you don’t get the ball taken away from you, obviously the manager, pitching coaches, they’ve still got some confidence left in you,” Rodriguez said. “That was big for me.”

Rodriguez was developed with caution, his lack of pitching deep not a product of high pitch counts but rather the Orioles striving to protect a prized pitcher. He might have arrived in the majors, and possibly already endured his initial slump, last year if not for a lat muscle strain that sidelined him for three months while he was seemingly on the verge of a call-up.

He was still searching for the best version of himself this spring, when he was deemed the sixth-best candidate for a five-man rotation and thus opened the year in Triple-A. He found himself up soon after when Kyle Bradish went down with a bruised right foot, but five decent outings couldn’t mask three disastrous ones, his last featuring nine runs allowed over 3 1/3 innings against the Texas Rangers.

He’s given up eight across his past five starts.

“The stuff is always there, obviously,” O’Hearn said. “It just seems like he’s attacking guys. He seems more confident.

“It’s cool to see just how effortless it looks.”

Rodriguez regained that confidence in Norfolk, posting a 1.69 ERA over seven starts while leading the International League in strikeouts during that span. As disappointed as he was to return to the minors, Rodriguez said that stint was vital to shedding the pitcher he was previously in the majors and becoming the one he is now.

“That was probably the best thing for me,” he said. “Just being able to go back down there in the minor league atmosphere, just to work on some things in games that you can’t work on in the big leagues. In the big leagues, it’s all about wins. In the minor leagues, it’s about development.

“[It was about] just getting back to being myself and making sure that that makes the trip back up here to the big leagues.”

Monday showed as much.

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