ANAHEIM — It’s been a rough go for right-hander Grayson Rodriguez in his first year in an Angel uniform. A pair of trips to the injured list and struggles on the mound have put a damper on the excitement that he produced when he was traded over to Anaheim in the offseason.
But on Wednesday night, Rodriguez delivered a bounce-back start that he’s been desperately searching for.
Rodriguez tossed five innings and allowed two runs on five hits and two walks with six strikeouts in the Angels’ 7-4* loss to the Astros at Angel Stadium.
"I thought Grayson pitched a lot better," Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said. "Changeup was a lot better. I thought the consistency with his fastballs was better. He was attacking the zone better and executing pitches. I think it's definitely a positive step in the right direction."
The only two blemishes on Rodriguez’s line were two solo home runs. Other than that, he did a fine job of limiting hard contact, only allowing five hard-hit balls on the evening.
The biggest key to Rodriguez’s success in this one was his ability to get ahead in counts.
Before Wednesday night, he had thrown the first pitch for a strike only 53.8% of the time, which is well below the league average of 61.2%. In this one, Rodriguez landed the first pitch for a strike 73% of the time, with the majority of them coming from his fastball.
Rodriguez’s ability to get ahead and stay ahead of hitters allowed him to limit hard contact and to avoid walks.
It also set him up to get swings and misses.
Rodriguez got whiffs on 47% of the swings against his changeup and 23% of the swings against his fastballs.
"Change-ups were so much better today," Rodriguez said. "I was able to throw some off-speed pitches for strikes. If the change-ups are like that, I'm excited about what I can do."
Part of the reason for the additional whiffs was the fact that his velocity was up across the board. Rodriguez’s fastball sat 96 mph and topped out at 98.3 mph.
"I felt like it was better, for sure," Rodriguez said. "I've been doing a lot of work over the last couple of weeks, some delivery work, just making sure that my body's in a much better position going down the mound. And I think that kind of reflects it."
This outing lowers his ERA to 7.98.