With the Orioles coming off their winningest month in nearly five years and having promoted top prospect Adley Rutschman less than two weeks ago, many expected the arrival of top pitching prospect Grayson Rodriguez to be next.
That excitement is now on hold after Rodriguez exited his Wednesday start at Triple-A Norfolk with what the Orioles described as right lat discomfort. The 22-year-old widely regarded as the best pitching prospect in baseball had allowed only two hits and struck out four over 5 2/3 innings against Jacksonville before leaving the game with Tides trainer Alan Rail. It’s not uncommon for a pitcher to experience occasional discomfort in his back connecting to the shoulder, but the organization will clearly want to exercise caution and make sure there’s nothing more serious going on with its supremely talented minor league pitcher.
With Rodriguez having allowed only three earned runs and recorded 47 strikeouts over his last six starts spanning 34 1/3 innings, the anticipation for his major league debut had only grown despite general manager Mike Elias and the organization being conservative with his innings. After missing out on the 2020 minor league season because of the pandemic, Rodriguez pitched to a 2.36 ERA and averaged 14.1 strikeouts per nine innings over 103 combined innings between High-A Aberdeen and Double-A Bowie last year.
Named International League pitcher of the week on Tuesday, Rodriguez has posted a 2.09 ERA over 56 innings and struck out 12.9 batters per nine innings for the Tides so far this season, leaving many to wonder whether he was being sufficiently challenged at the Triple-A level.
“We were working on some things with his delivery that we felt were a little different from his banner 2021 season,” Elias said on May 22. “We wanted to get him back on track. But equally if not more importantly is, when he comes up here, we want him to be able to go and pitch and help the team and not handcuff the team, and we’ve got to be super careful with the workload for this kid just because of who he is. But the calendars that we’ve had to work around since he’s been drafted with the whole COVID shortening, you guys have heard the explanation enough for what we’ve had to deal with on the pitching side with innings.
“We’re building him up. He’s getting close to a full buildup. We just want to see him keep going on the track that I feel like he’s been on. The last two or three outings have been markedly better in terms of stuff, location, delivery. I think his last outing was kind of vintage Grayson, which was exciting, and I’m watching each one of his starts very carefully and I know we are as an organization.”
The 6-foot-5, 220-pound right-hander had eclipsed 85 pitches in each of his previous three starts, making it clear he was close to being fully built up for a major league arrival. But now the Orioles will exercise caution for a different reason, which could further delay his arrival in Baltimore.
