One day, one team: Boston Red Sox, 4/8/2021

This game marked the return of Eduardo Rodriguez to the mound, with E-Rod pitching for the Red Sox for the first time since September 29, 2019. Rodriguez was slated to pitch on opening day, though the start of his season was delayed due to a “dead arm.” 2019 was a huge let down after the 2018 World Series Champion team, with the Red Sox finishing 19 games behind the Yankees for the AL East and 12 games behind the Rays for the second wild card spot, but Rodriguez was undoubtedly a highlight for the season. He shouldered a full load, making 34 starts and throwing over 200 innings for a rotation that lost Chris Sale and Nathan Eovaldi for huge chunks of the year. Eduardo Rodriguez pitched fairly well in his return to the mound, striking out seven while walking no one in five innings. He did give up three runs, all via the long ball, leaving his overall line a bit less impressive than some of the underlying numbers. Despite the 3 runs and the shorter outing (unsurprising, given that he’s coming off the dead arm), there are some positives to be found in the box score. On a per pitch basis, Rodriguez seemed sharp on the whole, throwing 56 of his 790 pitches for strikes (71%) and inducing 10 swinging strikes (12.6%). In general, he got ahead of hitters, with 13/20 getting first pitch strikes. His line of 7 strikeouts and no walks inspires some confidence that 2019 Rodriguez is back, even if the two home runs in only five innings pitched puts a damper on things a little bit. The first inning home run to Mountcastle was a tough one to give up; ahead 0-2, Rodriguez left a fastball over the plate in the upper portion of the strike zone. Mountcastle took advantage of that mistake and lashed a line drive home run to the power alley in right field to tie the score at 2 after an early Red Sox lead. Rodriguez also gave up a home run to Severino on a first pitch middle-middle fastball that Severino sent to the right field seats. Rodriguez was sitting around his 2019 velocity, but the location certainly left something to be desired.

Rodriguez threw his last pitch with a 3-2 deficit, courtesy of the aforementioned home runs. However, by the bottom of the sixth came, that score had flipped to a 4-3 lead. The Sox turned to Rule 5 pickup Garrett Whitlock to try and hang on to the lead, and he delivered. Whitlock, who was acquired from the Yankees for a small amount of cash ($100,000, so small by major league baseball standards), but has to stay on the MLB roster for the Red Sox to keep him, has certainly looked the part of a major league pitcher, despite never throwing above AA and spending 2020 recovering from Tommy John surgery. Because of his lack of experience and injury history, the Yankees left him off of the 40 man roster ahead of the Rule 5 draft, and he was snapped up by the pitching hungry Red Sox with the 4th pick of the Rule 5 draft for $100,000. Whitlock threw well in the blowout loss to cap off the Orioles sweep , throwing 3 1/3 innings with 5 strikeouts and three hits. But coming into a close game is an entirely different matter, especially for a Rule 5 pick that is essentially stashed on the roster. Whitlock pitched exceptionally well, throwing 2 perfect innings with 3 strikeouts. Of his 20 pitches, only five were balls and he induced 5 swinging and 4 called strikes. Whitlock certainly looks the part of a major league pitcher, at 6’5” and 190 lbs and has the stuff to match (95 MPH fastball, slider, and a developing changeup), though durability will certainly be a concern. Right now, he looks like an absolute steal in the Rule 5 draft, and could potentially even slide into the rotation in the second half of the season. He allowed the Red Sox to bridge to the back end of the bullpen, and showed some killer stuff.

Following Whitlock, Matt Andriese pitched the 8th inning. Andriese has been a guy throughout his career, posting about league average stats in a variety of roles. Andriese worked around a walk and a hit in the 8th, but nothing from his box score particularly jumps out.

Matt Barnes slammed the door on the Orioles this game, even if it was not a save situation. Barnes struck out Maikel Franco and Pedro Severino (who victimized E-Rod earlier in the game) on six pitches. In fact, he was one pitch away from an immaculate inning (9 pitches, 3 strikeouts) before Freddy Galvis fouled off an 0-2 curveball. Barnes got him in the end, striking him out on a 1-2 curve. All told, Barnes threw 11 pitches, 10 for strikes, and induced 3 swinging strikes. In short, he was dominant. It wasn’t quite an immaculate inning, but striking out the side on 11 pitches is pretty damn good as well.

One game, one team: Toronto Blue Jays 4/1/2021

I am trying to get back into writing a little bit about baseball. With these shorter pieces, I will focus on tidbits from box scores and highlights for one team in one specific game. Hopefully I'll be able to do some larger pieces later in the season once the semester is over.

On Opening Day, the Blue Jays eeked out a one run win over the Yankees in ten innings. They had a few close calls before pulling it out. The ace of the staff last year, Hyun-Jin Ryu was tapped for the first start, and Ryu struggled with first pitches, only getting ahead of 7 of the 21 batters he faced. Twelve swinging strikes is nice (13%), but he’ll need better control in order to maintain his success from the last couple of years. In 2020, his walk rate ticked up to 6.2%, which is about the same as his career numbers (5.5%), but well above the very successful years he had with the Dodgers (4.6% in 2018, 3.3% in 2019). While he only walked one batter this start, the

Dolis pitched the 8th inning, showing no issues stemming from the back spasms that caused him to miss a bit of time towards the end of spring training. Dolis assumed the traditional setup man role for this game, pitching the 8th with the score tied at 2. He was slated to face the 3-4-5 hitters (Hicks, Stanton, Torres) so the Blue Jays may be focusing on having him face the top hitters. Unsurprisingly, this closer situation will need monitoring, as Dolis could very well have pitched the 9th if the batting order in the late innings was just a bit different.

Jordan Romero was nearly unhittable, both because he was not throwing strikes (10/22 pitches), but also because of filthy stuff (8 swinging strikes, 36%). Last year Romero had an elite combination of high swinging strike rates (19.4%) and getting ahead of hitters (66.7% first pitch strike rate), which led him to be the top AL reliever per my modeled, based on xK and xBB rates. Only LeMahieu managed to make contact against him, with a weak groundball to third base. Granted, because of two earlier walks and a stolen base, Biggio had to make a nice throw to the plate to get the second out of the inning and prevent Tauchman’s potentially winning run from scoring, but some flashes of dominance from Romero. To end the 9th, Judge struck out on a fastball which seemed to catch him off guard, leaving the winning run at second base. Judge swung late and underneath the ball, perhaps sitting on Romano’s slider, which was his best pitch in 2020.

Merryweather was even more impressive, looking absolutely dominant to close the game out in the 10th. It only took him 11 pitches to strike out the side, and he only threw one single ball. Merryweather is an older (29) starting pitching prospect who is penciled in for the swingman role in the Blue Jays bullpen. He could emerge as an old school, multi-inning fireman. His fastball was already impressive in 2020, averaging 96.7 MPH, but in this outing it was nearly two MPH faster (98.4). Obviously a tiny sample size, but the velocity on his fastball and slider are both up about 2 MPH, while also dropping his changeup velocity. If you are in a league where middle relievers have value, he could be an excellent pickup. Since writing an initial draft of this post, Merryweather picked up another save on Sunday. He was similarly dominant, striking out 2 Yankees in a perfect inning to close out a 3-1 win. Merryweather has been nearly unhittable thus far, and could be stealing the closer job from Dolis or Romano (who pitched in the 8th on Sunday).