E-Rod looks forward after 'grinder' first half

ANAHEIM -- First there were the annoying bloops. Later came the back-to-back blasts.

For Eduardo Rodriguez, it was a somewhat fitting end to his up-and-down first half.

• Box score

As the Red Sox lost, 5-4, in the rubber match of a three-game series to the Angels, E-Rod gave up four runs on nine hits over five innings, walking none and striking out five.

“Personally, a grinder. That’s how I see my first half, personally,” said Rodriguez. “Every start, just go out there and grind, grind, grind.”

The grind Rodriguez referred to has added up to a 6-5 record and a 5.52 ERA in 17 starts.

Despite Wednesday’s loss, Rodriguez has been trending upward of late. In his last four starts, Rodriguez posted a 3.52 ERA with 26 strikeouts and three walks, while holding the opposition to a .244 average and a .665 OPS in 23 innings.

Rodriguez will get seven days of rest before he is the first Boston pitcher to take the mound to open the second half at Yankee Stadium on July 15.

“I felt really good the last couple starts, and I have to go and execute the next half. Now we’ll start pushing towards the playoffs, and I know what I have to do to put my team in position to win every start I go out there,” Rodriguez said.

Aside from the back-to-back jacks by Shohei Ohtani (No. 32) and Jared Walsh in the fifth inning, the Angels didn’t have any meaningful hard contact against Rodriguez.

“I tried to go changeup to Ohtani, and I missed middle-up and he hit out. And the other guy I went to go down and away, and I missed the middle of the plate and he hit it out, too,” Rodriguez said.

Given the final score, perhaps the biggest homer of the game was the one Darwinzon Hernandez gave up to Walsh in the seventh.

After starting this West Coast trip by winning three out of four, the Sox had an anti-climactic end, losing the last two to break even on the trip. The homers by the Angels were all that separated Boston from a winning trip.

“Hanging changeup, bad cutter and a bad fastball. That’s what they do,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “They hit the ball out of the ballpark. We saw it yesterday with [Max] Stassi, the three home runs today. We can talk about all the singles and soft contact, but those three swings, they were big, and the one yesterday. It’s what they do and they have enough guys that they put it in play, but they have power. We got burned by the home runs.”

In building a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first, the Halos had three hits that didn’t top 80-mph.

“He threw the ball well,” Cora said of Rodriguez. “There was a lot of soft contact, so that’s out of your control. I know he was disappointed and upset that was happening, but that’s the nature of the ballgame. Play to make contact and hopefully good things happen. It happened enough to them the last two days. Stuff-wise, he was really good.”

The fact that Rodriguez had 15 whiffs in 87 pitches was an indicator of how much life the lefty had on his pitches.

Given that Rodriguez didn’t pitch at all in 2020 due to myocarditis, it stands to reason he is still getting stronger and will perform better down the stretch. For a Boston team that should also get Chris Sale back at some point in August, a strong finish by Rodriguez could be huge.

“He’s been amazing the last three or four [starts],” said Cora. “Stuff wise he is where he has to be, making pitches. His fastball, actually halfway through the game, it started playing. He’s like, ‘If you’re going to make contact down there, let’s elevate.’ He did a good job. So he’s in a good spot.”

Costly call and a near miss
The Red Sox were on the comeback trail in the top of the sixth, down 4-3, with two on and two outs when Christian Vázquez hit a grounder up the middle. Second baseman David Fletcher flipped to shortstop José Iglesias, who executed some fancy footwork to fire to first for what was called a double play. The issue Boston had was that it looked like Iglesias missed the bag before throwing.

Christian Arroyo, who was ruled out at second, furiously waved his arms toward Boston's dugout, and Cora challenged the call by second-base umpire Alfonso Marquez. However, the call stood, as a frustrated Arroyo went to retrieve his glove and play defense.

“There’s no more neighborhood play,” said Cora. “I know [Iglesias] is good at short, he makes great plays, he has some great footwork, but the angles that I saw, I didn’t agree with Alfonso. Obviously he’s closer than me. It was going to be, what, second and third and two outs, but I didn’t agree with the call. Like I said, he’s closer than me, so he had a better view.”

Arroyo nearly came through two innings later when he hit a grounder up the middle that looked like it had enough to get into center field and score Xander Bogaerts with the tying run. But Fletcher made a nice stop and fired to first for the inning-ending out.

“I hit it, and as soon as it got by the pitcher, I was thinking it would maybe squeak through,” said Arroyo. “They shifted a little bit and Fletcher was playing up the middle, and [he] made a really good play in shallow center. Off the bat, I thought there was a chance.”