Top Yankees prospect Elmer Rodríguez had made his MLB debut last week, on Wednesday, against the Texas Rangers, and while he surrendered just two runs in four innings, he struggled with walks and command issues all game. He gave away four free passes and showed the nerves you would expect from a 22-year-old pitching under the bright lights of MLB for the first time.
On Tuesday, he made his second start at the highest level, and it’s fair to say there were some more ups and downs. The jitters that took over in his debut reappeared in the first inning, when he conceded three runs on, and pay attention to this, two hits, two walks, a hit-by-pitch, and a wild pitch.
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From that point forward, he settled down and pitched 3.2 scoreless additional frames before being taken out in the fifth. Brent Headrick bailed him out and prevented more runs from being added to his line, as Rodríguez left the bases loaded with two outs when the reliever got Sam Haggerty to strike out.
Rodríguez’s final line: 4.2 innings, six hits, three runs (all earned), four walks, and two strikeouts. His ERA is now 5.19, and given the fact that he allowed 11 baserunners in less than five frames, it could be worse.
Despite the endless parade of baserunners, there are some positive takeaways from Rodríguez’s outing. There was a lot of contact on the ground, and I mean a lot: he got nine groundouts and two flyouts. Additionally, some of the hits he yielded were of the seeing-eye variety. He’s allowed a few very soft singles; for example, Ezequiel Duran had two singles off him, one that left his bat at 67.9 mph, and the other at 64.7 mph.
Rodríguez also earned 12 swings and misses and a 32 percent whiff rate last night. In his first outing, he got just eight empty swings and a 28 percent whiff rate. Additionally, he had a 31 percent CSW% (called strikes+whiffs) last night and a 26 percent mark last week. Still, he was a bit over the place on Tuesday:
His four-seam fastball averaged 95.3 mph, and his sinker 94.8 mph. Both were a bit down in comparison to his first start, where they were at 95.5 mph and 95.3 mph, respectively, but nothing terribly worrisome. He did go to the sinker 52 percent of the time, which is a ton if we use that debut last week to compare. The four-seamer was his second-favorite pitch on Tuesday night at 18 percent.
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He didn’t always have good control and command of his sinker, especially in the first and last innings of his outing, but the pitch did earn him five whiffs compared to just one in his MLB debut. He also had two with the four-seamer and two each with his curveball and changeup.
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It’s important to point out that the fact that he faced the same team he did in his debut didn’t help matters, but such is life in MLB. It happens sometimes.
Having said that, he needs to improve. The idea of being a major league starter is to find that necessary consistency to handle an opposing lineup over the course of an entire game, or at least a good chunk of it. It’s good that he settled after that rough opening frame, but he still allowed four hits and two walks in the remaining 3.2 innings, with just two punchouts. What we saw from innings two to four was encouraging on the whole, but Rodríguez didn’t start or finish his outing on a positive note, and that’s something to work on.
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In the minor leagues, he surrendered 2.95 walks per nine innings. After two MLB outings, the number is an alarming 8.31, uncharacteristically high for a pitcher with a reputation for having excellent control and command. Rodríguez has a bright future, but it’s clear that he needs to iron out the kinks to reach his potential. Indeed, he’ll have to iron out those kinks in the minors, the Yankees optioning him after this latest start. Still, it speaks well that the Yankees turned quickly to Rodríguez when they needed a couple spot starts, and we should expect to see again some time this year.
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