The Red Sox have officially activated Eduardo Rodriguez for his much-anticipated first start of the 2021 season, the team announced. He will take the hill for today’s ballgame against Baltimore. Rodriguez, of course, will be making his first start since 2019 after missing last season due to myocarditis brought on by COVID-19. Rodriguez began this season on the injured list because of elbow inflammation.
It’s somewhat appropriate that Rodriguez be able to make his return against the Orioles, with whom he spent many of his development years. He came to the Red Sox in a deadline deal for Andrew Miller in July of 2014. He would make his debut for the Red Sox the following season, and he’s been a key piece of their rotation ever since.
The corresponding roster move was made yesterday when Tanner Houck was optioned to Boston’s alternate training site. He appeared in two games, starting one, totaling six innings. He gave up two earned runs on seven hits, but also managed an impressive 10:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Houck will almost certainly be back this season, potentially as early as next week as the Red Sox kick off a 16-game stretch without a day off, beginning this Saturday.
WS here we come! Totally kidding, but curious to see if Erod will come back and prove he is our #2. Also want to see Houck prove his spot in next years rotation (if he hasn’t already).
Doesn’t take much to earn a spot in Boston’s rotation.
Nice to houck perform well. He wasn’t as highly regarded as singer but they were both players who fell draft day due to “not as good as expected” college seasons leading to draft. I’m high on players like that. Scouts in love w em one day is better than no love
Let’s hope he’s not just number 2, if you catch my drift.
genre69, I see what you meant by that, number 2 and all. You know, like he’ll be a piece of s-yit.
But actually Eduardo was fantastic tonight, for his first time out. Sox are rolling. Four in a row. Let’s go baby things are looking up !!!
First place….5 in a row after Saturday’s 10-inning win
#2???? Who’s #1,Jim Lonbourg?
A healthy Chris Sale obviously.
Obviously? I don’t know about that. He’s getting pretty far removed from a successful season.
Oh brother. His ERA was terrible for Sale in his last season but all his numbers would’ve been fine for an average pitcher. He’s only 32. He’ll be back and your cynicism will age poorly, as cynicism always ages. I’d take five Chris Sales coming off two lost seasons over five healthy Eduardo Rodriguezes any day.
Allow me to introduce you to realism so you can stop mistaking it for cynicism. Chris Sale will have a small amount of innings pitched this season. I wouldn’t judge much by THAT alone even if it turns out terrible. But Sale will be 33 by the time he will have another full season. That’s getting pretty far removed.
As for his 2019 numbers, while they weren’t fantastic, I would indeed say they are well bellow even a staff ace expectations so if I said he is getting further removed from an ace like season, would you find that less cynical?
SalaryCapMyth – Since Farrell left, the Red Sox really haven’t had a manager who knows anything about pitching. The 2019 unconscious attempt to ruin Sale’s career by the jackass known as Cora shouldn’t count against Sale and his skills. When a know-nothing manager tries to change your wind-up mid-season trouble will nearly always result. The change tore up his elbow and forced TJ surgery. Cora should stick to cheating, the only thing he is good at.
Sale is by far the #1 starter and Nate Eovaldi is the #2 SP right now because a guy with a 3.81 ERA and 1.33 WHiP doesn’t really qualify as anything more than a #3 SP. Remember, 2019 was E-Rod’s career year and it was mediocre except for the Wins thanks to the offense that year.
Sale started the All-Star game in both 2017 and 2018 and then had the brain child mess with wind-up so he could be more effective. How ridiculous does that sound now? Sale had pitched as if his hair was on fire since he first broke into the bigs. He often got dead arm in August when he was with the White Sox and it often cost him a Cy Young but he’s a max effort guy like Max Scherzer but he has less stamina.
Cora was the guy trying to change him since Cora arrived. He asked him to throttle down his velocity in the early innings of games, something Sale had never done before and clearly it made him uncomfortable and less effective. Cora for some unknown reason simply can’t stop trying to advise a guy who has more baseball talent in his picky finger than Cora has in his entire body. Unfortunately, Sale being the ultimate “team” guy obeyed Cora’s orders. As a $30M player who knows a crap load more about pitching than Cora, he should have told him to pound sand or his agent should have. Sale has spent his entire life being successful. Why Cora would think he could help him improve is incomprehensible. Someone needs to tell the moron to leave Sale alone.
Despite Cora the cheater still being manager, I look forward to Sale having a healthy arm again. He’ll get his velocity back just like nearly all the all-star level pitchers who have had the surgery. The real key to his success is removing Cora from the equation. That jackass needs to shut the hell up and spend all his time coddling Devers (his only real value to the team).
Sale needs someone in charge that will tell him to go back out there and pitch with his hair on fire again. If he gets dead arm in August with a 1.75 ERA and 0.80 WHIP, who cares!! The team maximizes his value when he pitches his way not Cora’s way. With the White Sox, he took a week or two to let the dead arm pass and returned in September as a way above average SP. He may not have been unworldly like he was from April to July but he’s still the best pitcher on the staff. Sale simply needs to be Sale again, not Cora’s version of Sale.
Don’t dismiss Sale and NEVER compare E-Rod (a journeyman #3 SP) to Sale, It’s embarrassing.
The opening-day starter was Nathan eovaldi. The game was on television, did you miss it? He pitched again in the number one spot yesterday. Did pretty well. Fingers crossed he keeps pitching like a number one. Hope he doesn’t get hurt for once.
Bob – you need to be in the Hall of Fame for stupid comments that are never funny.
RS8 – Maybe you need to develop a sense of humor!! Jim Lonborg was some outstanding name dropping! If only he hadn’t been a skier!! What a great career he might have had.
For the record Bob, HOF definitely and worth the price of admission!!
Big fan.
RS you are a pompous, narcissistic a$$.
Go root for the Dodgers……KD, Mookie’s biggest fan.
This has the makings of a great story. Good to see ERod coming back and starting. Solid pitcher in the tough AL East. Houck will return. Boston’s just keeping the fresher arms.
Huge year for ERod, seeing as he’s a free agent after the season. He has dominant stuff, just needs to be more consistent.
For the same reason, (free agent at the end of the year, contract year,) I’m hoping Matt Barnes has a great year as well. I’m glad they didn’t give these guys, who have underperformed, contracts. Let’s let them prove it for once.
As a Rangers fan hope Nick Williams makes the most of this call up, really liked him as a Rangers prospect
Good to see Erod back.
Happy for Eduardo. Health and pursing dreams goes well beyond baseball. Happy he’s back.
I don’t really understand the “but” about Houck allowing two runs and seven hits in six IP. That’s perfectly fine.
I agree especially when sometimes and I don’t know if this was the case with Tanner Houck, but sometimes you leave a guy on base and the guy who relieves you allows the run to score but it’s charged the back to me. I hate that.
But in any case Tanner Houck looks like a keeper. They’re just going with the starters they have at the big league level currently and Tanner Houck will have his time, I’m sure this season.
You can also include – 1 walk and 10 strikeouts. You can not get much better than that!
RS8 – I agree. Houck was outstanding and will be again as soon as he spends enough time in the minors to get back under the other players qualifying for free agency the year he does.
The Red Sox need to do their best to keep him down long enough to ensure the extra year of controllable time. Bringing him back was a bad move. In four days the limit to qualify for a service year will be up allowing the Red Sox to not count this season against his controllable years but he must also qualify as NOT being an exception. There needs to be 22% of the players qualifying for free agency in the same year exceeding his days in the majors during 2021 for him to not qualify for the exemption. That’s where the gamble to the Red Sox occurs. If he’s in the top 21% of the qualifying players for Free Agency in 2026 he won’t get the extra year. I hope the Red Sox are monitoring the rest of the league to have a feel for when he’ll be in the 22nd percentile and safe to promote while keeping the extra year of control.
Houck is too outstanding to lose that extra year of control. When Sale’s contract is up he will be the Red Sox #1 SP. Hopefully, Pivetta will continue to develop as well because Sale, Houck and Pivetta is a solid 3/5ths of a pitching staff and thanks to the two youngsters that 3/5ths only costs roughly $10M a starter. Two more $10M starting pitchers and you have an extremely effective and cost effective rotation leaving money to replace Mookie’s bat and to get a real closer.
The Red Sox need to start talks with St. Louis since the Cardinals are using Reyes as their closer. Both Hicks and Gallegos would be incredibly cheap closers with great stuff. I say trade them Downs for one of the two outstanding arms!!
Great to see E-Rod coming back and getting a victory for his team against the O’s today!
Redsox actually look pretty good