Orioles manager Brandon Hyde provided an update on Grayson Rodriguez before tonight’s loss to the Nationals. The right-hander was diagnosed with a mild strain in his right lat, relays Jake Rill of MLB.com. The O’s hope he can resume a throwing program within a few weeks.
The team announced last week that Rodriguez was going for a second opinion after experiencing shoulder soreness. He’d begun the season on the injured list because of elbow inflammation. The shoulder discomfort arose during his rehab process. It’s not an entirely new development, however. Rodriguez sustained a lat strain while he was a prospect midway through the 2022 season. Shoulder discomfort sidelined him early last year, while lat soreness ended his season in August.
It’ll now be at least a few weeks before Rodriguez is able to throw again. He’ll presumably be starting from scratch at that point, so he’s almost certainly going to be out into June at the earliest. It’s not the worst-case situation, but it’s another hit to a floundering Baltimore rotation. Rodriguez is arguably the O’s best starter. He posted a 3.86 ERA while striking out 26.5% of opponents across 20 starts last season.
Baltimore’s rotation carried an MLB-worst 6.22 earned run average into play Wednesday. Tomoyuki Sugano, who has been their most effective healthy starter, managed seven innings of three-run ball tonight. That’ll help the rotation’s rate stats, but the O’s were unable to capitalize on his solid outing in an eventual 4-3 loss. They’ve dropped three in a row to fall to 9-14.
Cade Povich goes against MacKenzie Gore tomorrow as they try to avoid a sweep. They’ll likely turn to rookie Brandon Young to open a weekend set against Detroit on Friday. Charlie Morton and Dean Kremer — both of whom have been hit hard — would be on schedule to finish the series. The O’s have been without Opening Day starter Zach Eflin for two weeks because of a low-grade lat strain of his own. Hyde said that Eflin will progress to bullpen sessions later this week (via Jacob Calvin Meyer of The Baltimore Sun).
The year of the lats continues
These injuries just keep latting them down.
Better lat than never.
He must be lat’ose intolerant.
Maybe Mat Latos intolerant
Lats not argue balls and strikes here
Its 1 injury after another with grayson
What a disappointment
Nananananananana nanananana, LATMAN!
This was a second opinion. Lat that sink in for a moment.
I feel like I’m lat to the party, what’d I miss?
Exactly. So if Opinion #1 was correct, we’re going to find out in a few weeks when something else appears and he has a “setback.”
That would be the end of Rodriguez’s career as a starter, like so many other Orioles, and maybe he becomes another reliever.
How do people keep thinking they have a shoulder injury and it’s a lower back problem
GMon – Because people are clueless.
Recently Cora thought Fitts had a shoulder injury, it turned out to be just a mild pectoral strain.
When the injury happened the announcers even pointed out Fitts was grabbing at his pectoral area, so why did Cora think it was his shoulder?
@GM
Remember to sing…
“the shoulder bone is connected to the lat bone…”
I’m more than 3 times his guys age.
Don’t play a sport making hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars a year for a living.
Work out 3 days a week primarily with weights, sit-up machines and weighted basketballs for 2 hours. Do bicycling, swimming, stretching, aerobic exercising, power yoga, and floorwork for at least 2 hours a day 3 other days a week. Rest once a week. At my age I develop some minor injuries, usually work through them.
This kid had lat problems in the past? Why wasn’t he on a regular program to assure that didn’t reoccur?
The kid is being paid $770,000 this year to sit at home and let his lat heal when he should be at work – and he only works maybe 8 months a year.
When I go to clubs to work out, there are people my age from all walks of life: businesspeople, doctors, office workers, salespeople, attorneys, warehouse workers…male and female – all wanting to be at their best for their families and those they interact with.
Good to see the Orioles are dumping all their professional players and giving their jobs to the unproven kids that keep getting hurt. OK, so maybe they’ve now begun to lose games regularly again. But hey, these kids are the future! The old guys need to go away somewhere.
Note to FO: Reap what you sow!
P.S. Nolan Ryan pitched until he was 46 years-old. Started 773 games and pitched 5386 innings….at the major league level. How did that happen?
I think you got a lat strain patting yourself on the back while tooting your own horn.
Nolan Ryan—-an anomaly. Samuel’s ego is sickening.
What is hilarious is he clearly has no idea the amount of strains and pulls even moderate regular weight training leads to. And those who are much more into weight training often have surgeries, torn muscles, burst tendons, etc.
Then he tries to round it out tossing in any random form of exercise he knows. Oblivious to the fact that with regime listed he’d be working out same muscles much of the claimed 6 days. Obviously doing so would be counterproductive to say the least.
Then there’s the $770k. Take off 40% taxes, 3% agent, x% for whatever nutritional products he has a pro athlete purchases.
Samuel loves to talk a big game and thinks he sounds great, but any indepth look at his claims usually seems to be about as solid as a sponge.
🤡
Sammy, you are the GOAT, a legend, and a cheap F, and most of all, God’s gift to posting on mlbtr.
You live here. Pay the $30 yearly fee Cheapo.
Samuel, we’re happy for you tho, or sorry that happened.
Samuel
C’mon
Are you really going to equate the businesspeople, doctors, office workers, etc. working out, or whatever you can do, with the regimen of a professional athlete?
Case in point – Compared to the mediocre D-1 distance runner I was at age 20, I now train 2.5 to 3 minutes per mile slower and I do 1/3 the mileage per week now at age 50. In a good week. The pros train 1-1.5 min/mile faster than me at peak and usually twice the mileage! Knowing what that means I have a ton of admiration for what kind of effort, talent…and risk…that entails.
Obviously they are pushing the envelope just a little more than old guys on the stairmaster.
When you get near the edge of the envelope, injuries happen. They shouldn’t be getting there this much, and there’s something inherently wrong with what the Orioles do to have ALL of them get hurt through so many years.
As for Nolan Ryan, as hard as he threw, I still think he threw within himself which was why he could go 5386 IP. These guys go right to the outer edge and turn their ligaments into spaghetti.
Diet too. Ya know, eating right is a thing too … not just exercise. Santander got serious about taking care of his body. Earlier in his career he had trouble staying on the field. Not the case today. You go Tony Taters, you go!
That was the thing with Tony (as mentioned by several during the offseason free agency debates). He may only hit .230 to .240 but he’ll take walks and he will be out there 150+ games.
“the best ability is avail – ability”
Thats good news for the Orioles but Im still I still believe they are better off not making any trades this season for starting pitching, unless its the players that are on expiring contracts whom they dont intend to being back, Mountcastle and Mullins, and they should be after prospects in those trades, or MLB pitchers with team control.
They have to wait until everybody is healthy and see where they stand, and thats late in the aeason. In ’26 they should have Bradish, Rodriguez, Wells and Eflin. Kyle Gipson possibly, Povich and McDermott. And can take another shot at FA with the Morton money.
Eflin is a free agent
Thanks – I thought he was signed through ’26 – point is though they are so bad in the pitching department this season that it doesnt make much sense to trade the prospects unless they are getting controllable pitching in return. I think they are better off waiting until the entire group is healthy and pitching to make any additions, and use ’25 to further develop their young prospects at the big league level.
It’s not over yet. But things need to turn quickly. The only guy giving us quality innings in the rotation is Sugano. That’s a big problem.
This rotation would be a problem even if we had brought Burnes back. All of the good starters are hurt. Morton is junk. Kremer looks bad this year & everything Povich throws gets hit.
bwmiller
If they are actually going to creak and keep open the competitive window, they need to obtain starting pitchers with multiple years of control ASAP. Might be too late to do that this year though unless you’re in sell mode come July. And they have to be willing to give up some prospect capital. That might mean Mayo if they are never going to give him a fair shake.
Mullins will become attractive if he’s hitting like this, but who will want Mountcastle if not hitting or O’Hearn if he’s that limited? Not in a good place with O’Neill, he’d have to do a 180 and that’s not a good contract for other teams to grab as O’Neill would opt out (player’s option for ’26) if he turns it around but opt in if he’s bad/gets hurt.
Could try to sign Eflin for say, 3 years (he’s a FA after ’25 BTW). I would not be depending upon Rodriguez at this point with the numerous injuries. Bradish is a maybe, but you won’t know at the deadline. Have to be looking to the outside and spend for true commitments – both strategies are outside of the Orioles mode of thought.
So where is the buy/sell line in July? They’re on pace for 34-47 come midseason but that’s based off playing this poorly (they can’t be this bad, really?). That’s got to be on the sell line of things. No teams are running away with the east. Is .500 the line?
I just see the team completely without motivation to do something about addressing their circumstances, Mateo, Perez, and Morton all remain Orioles. Morton is starting Saturday. No change in approach has been noticed with the regressing young core of hitters (save Holliday) All messaging is that this poor play is acceptable.
I’m done with 2025. See you Lat-er.
How about Andrew Heaney 1yr / 5.25M, 3QS on the season, 5 GS, 31.1IP, 1.72ERA, 31/6 K to BB ratio, 0.766 WHIP, 34 years old, has a few more good seasons in him, think he’s angling for an extension?
The Pirates will probably trade him sooner than later but I think they should trade Skenes and sign Heaney.
Something about Skenes arm slot that I don’t like, and they could get an epic haul for Skenes. For example, the Yankees. They could get all of their pitching prospects:
Hess, Hampton, Schlittler, LaLane and LaGrange -and their position prospects too – Jones and Arias – Yankees would make that trade.
Resign Heaney to a four year team friendly pact ASAP, he’s 34, he can be leveraged. He knows that arms are fragile and that he should bank on this good start.
Go with Heaney, Chandler, Keller, Jones and Falter, have a bunch of really good pitching prospects in tow. I really like the Yankees pitching prospects, I think all five of those names are going to be real good players.
Yeesh. Just tell Charlie Morton it’s been real and it’s been fun, but it hasn’t been real fun. The guy has been a horror show and a bad signing.
I think he should pitch in the bullpen, he could be good.
His third since 2022!
Ok. See you next year Grayson Some guys just have the injury bug. He seems like one of those guys.
Reminds me a little of Mark Prior. Great prospect, tons of talent, always injured.