Eduardo Rodriguez has is an element of the crucial cogs for the resurgent Red Sox. Sure, Boston’s league-leading wRC + is the most important impetus for the club’s success. But both the starting rotation and the bullpen are currently in the top third of the conference and Rodriguez has been one of the larger performers of the former’s placement among the league-leaders. Rodriguez has accumulated 0.4 WAR in just four starts and 23 innings of creation. He sports a 3.52 ERA and 3.34 FIP despite granting a tawdry 17.4% HR/ FB. The primary motorist of his outcomes? Not simply is he striking out a shade more than 29% of resist hitters( after posting recognizes of 24.8% and 26.4% the previous two seasons ), his move charge sits at a glisten 2.2%. This start is already excessively impressive. But in different contexts of what he accepted in the very recent past, I would say it’s extraordinary.

For those unfamiliar, Rodriguez missed the entire 2020 expedition. It wasn’t due to an elbow injury or shoulder soreness or forearm tightness. Rodriguez accepted myocarditis; a stomach necessity connected to contracting COVID-1 9. Speaking to Joon Lee of ESPN, Rodriguez said he could not throw slopes without feeling significant wearines brought on by the effects of his surrounding. He was unable to train for three months. This meant that not only did he miss last-place season but he was behind the proverbial eight pellet when it came to preparing for the 2021 season.

Getting back on the mound was an amazing accomplishment alone. Having one of the most dominant starts to the season among all starting pitchers is one of the most surprising developings of the young season. Rodriguez has not just picked up where he left off. He has adjusted his move mingle and profoundly altered the method by which he affects hitters.

His fastball velocity is down a half a click, despite the tournament norm increasing by half a tick.

But that hasn’t proven to be a problem. As I are referred to, he has acquired major nips to his arsenal in 2021. In his first three major league seasons, Rodriguez leveraged his plus fastball velocity by throwing the tone about 60% of the time. As the velocity decreased, he began to rely on the slope reductions in 2018 -1 9. Now the four-seamer is his second-most used pitch 😛 TAGEND

Rodriguez Pitch Mix 2021 vs. 2018 -1 9

Pitch Type 2021 Pitch% 2021 SwStr% 2021 wOBA 2018-19 Pitch% 2018-19 SwStr% 2018-19 wOBA

CH 31.2 16.8 .262 21.8 18.7. 294

FF 26.8 18.5 .337 38.1 10.4. 358

FC 20.4 5.7 .350 17.8 7.7. 264

SL 9.0 3.2 .182 5.0 10.4. 537

SOURCE: Baseball Savant

His four-seam usage is down 11.3 percentage points and he is really leaning into his upper-class changeup, the pearl of his arsenal now that he is not a flame-throwing 22 -year-old. The move has garnered swinging strikes at a 16.8% clip, a hideous representation rendered how often he sheds it. It returns him a great tool to keep right-handed hitters at bay. Rodriguez, like most, favors the degree less with the squad advantage, where he is more egalitarian with his tar collection. Not merely have opposing hitters struggled to attain contact with the changeup, but the slope has allowed really a. 262 wOBA in illustration images where he finishes off the batters with it.

The fastball, his most used pitch against left-handers, is inducing swinging strikes at a 18.5% proportion, virtually double the tournament norm for the lurch form. Rodriguez’s main two lurches ought to have excellent in getting hitters to swaying and miss. All of the sniffs on his two main tones are surely a vital factor in adding nearly 25% to his strikeout pace. Interestingly he has struggled to see the same swinging strike additions with his other two pitches, the cutter and slider. The slider, which this is the only way hurls 9.0% of the time, has allowed just a. 182 wOBA despite the lack of scents. Such a discrepancy is not likely to hold. The cutter has not been great in terms of either smell rate or overall creation mitigation. And the movement profile of all his moves is stable across seasons, so the rise in strikeout frequency cannot are due to discrepancies in a better quality of his trash. If you look across all countings, there seems to be much of a difference between how often Rodriguez does batters to semblance 😛 TAGEND

Rodriguez SwStr% by Count

Year 0-0 0-1 0-2 1-0 1-1 1-2 2-0 2-1 2-2 3-0 3-1 3-2

2018 -2 019 8.7 12.2 13.8 9.6 15.7 10.7 14.9 13.1 10.9 0.0 14.1 12.8

2021 10.1 10.9 14.8 10 12.1 19 25.0 25.0 7.7 0.0 0.0 13.3

SOURCE: Baseball Savant

He has been mildly more successful in two-strike weighs. The same is true for more hitter-friendly counts. So what has contributed to massive uptick in his fluctuate strike proportion overall? The stunt is that he is avoiding these hitter-friendly counts more than ever, bridging the start of plate impressions to two-strike countings more efficiently, which floats his swinging strike frequency on all pitches.

Rodriguez Percentage of Pitches by Count

Year 0-0 0-1 0-2 1-0 1-1 1-2 2-0 2-1 2-2 3-0 3-1 3-2

2018 -2 019 24.2 12.6 6.2 9.1 10.4 9.7 3.2 5.7 9.3 0.8 2.3 6.5

2021 25.9 13.4 7.9 8.7 9.6 12.2 2.3 3.5 11.4 0.3 0.3 4.4

SOURCE: Baseball Savant

Rodriguez is facing more batters in 0-2, 1-2, and 2-2 countings( 31.5% versus 25.2% in 2018 -1 9 ). His firstly slope strike rate is up a couple of percentage points. Batters are seeing ball three on only 5% of tones against Rodriguez compared to 9.6% before. You cannot shy clod four without getting to ball three, so that fact that this has led to a microscopic foot charge is not surprising in the slightest.

Excising batter-friendly weighs is the result of Rodriguez relentlessly affecting the strike zone. In 2018 and’ 19 compounded, he threw 47.4% of his tones in the strike zone( 49.8% in’ 18 and simply 45.8% in’ 19 ). That figure has descended all the way up to 56.9% in his four 2021 starts and is not unique to any count-based situation. He is filling up the zone in two strike countings to the tune of 53.7% compared against 39.5% in 2018 -1 9 per data from Baseball Savant. When even or behind in the weigh, his zone proportion is up to 58.3% from 49.6% in those previous couple of seasons.

He has come back and become a markedly more aggressive pitcher. So far the strategy has worked and cured him get to those prized two-strike weighs, a vital step to announcing a higher strikeout proportion. And by living so often in the zone, hitters are forced to swing at Rodriguez’s presents more often and rarely get into advantageous three dance counts. His swing rate against is almost six percentage points higher than in previous seasons, with the uptick in fluctuation strike percentage as a cherry-red on top. That is some tough sledding for opposing smashes, if you ask me.

Eduardo Rodriguez opened 2021 with a totally reworked coming. He has induced substantial adjustments to his tone desegregate, hurling his signature changeup most often at the expense of his four-seamer, which is probably at least partly the outcomes of a decline in velocity. Not merely that, but the degree to which he is taking the initiative and replenishing up the zone is forcing hitters to shaking more, often lessening the hazard they can draw the foot. All the while, he is inducing the highest swinging strike frequencies of his career.

If that were the end of the story, we would be excited to see what Rodriguez will do move forward, and with good reason. But we know there is much more to it than that. He has spawned these adjustments after missing the part 2020 season due to complications from COVID-1 9. If anyone suggest that they felt self-confident about what to expect from Rodriguez in 2021, they were lying. To insure him back in action and as good as ever — better even — has is an element of the most exciting improvements of the 2021 season.

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