Why Rodriguez looks like a budding ace for O's

Every single one of Grayson Rodriguez's 36 big league outings, from his debut for the Orioles last April until now, has started the same way: with a fastball as his first pitch of the game.

"That seems to be a big topic as of late," Rodriguez said with a laugh on a visit to MLB headquarters in New York this week. "That's something that I guess we figured out here in the last week or so … But yeah, I mean, if it's working, I'm gonna keep doing it, that's for sure."

But that tally mark of consistency -- 36 games, 36 four-seamers to open the game, like clockwork -- belies how much Rodriguez has grown as a pitcher over that short time.

Once you get past Pitch 1, the initial batch of games are nothing like the ones that have come since. Rodriguez's first two months in the Majors were so rocky that Baltimore sent their top pitching prospect to Triple-A to "reset" himself.

And he did. Since Rodriguez returned to Baltimore after the 2023 All-Star break, he's 13-4 with a 2.88 ERA and 150 strikeouts in 25 regular-season starts. Now the 24-year-old looks like one of the game's budding young aces, just like he was supposed to be all along.

Rodriguez takes an 8-2 record, 3.20 ERA and 77 strikeouts into Friday's start against the Astros. The tandem of him and Corbin Burnes atop the rotation is a big reason why the O's are a powerhouse again this year. Rodriguez was in the Minors for the 2023 All-Star Game; in 2024, he might be on the AL All-Star team.

Rodriguez has faced the top team in the American League, the Yankees, and the top team in the National League, the Phillies, and beaten them both. He's struck out some superstar hitters along the way -- Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Mike Trout and Julio Rodríguez. Those wins, and those K's, are great illustrations of how Rodriguez has evolved as a pitcher.

Here's how he's carried his stellar run into 2024.

He lets his fastball ride when he needs it

Rodriguez has really embraced the running action on his heater this season. What that means is lots and lots of upper-90s heaters that take off to the arm side.

Rodriguez throws hard, but his four-seamer is a lot more about run than it is about the rise that you'd see from a power pitcher like Gerrit Cole. His four-seamer averages over a foot of run, and five inches more run than an average four-seamer.

Rodriguez has leaned into that fastball profile by pounding four-seamers up-and-in toward righties, and up-and-away from lefties. That stays true from the heater that inevitably starts his game, to the end of his outing. You can't just pump fastballs down the middle to steal strikes in Major League Baseball these days, so Rodriguez really lets it rip.

"In baseball, there's no such thing as a free strike anymore," Rodriguez said. "Obviously you see what Gunnar [Henderson], you see what [Kyle] Schwarber are doing now -- a lot of leadoff homers. The get-me-over fastball has kind of gone away. But if you just work on hitting a spot, I think you'll be all right."

That's how he gets his fastball K's. Let's look at two of those -- one against an elite left-handed hitter, Soto, and one against an elite right-handed hitter, Trout.

Rodriguez vs. Soto on April 29 was a battle, the kind Soto always seems to give even the best pitchers. It took Rodriguez eight pitches to strike Soto out. Halfway through the at-bat, Rodriguez tried to put Soto away with a changeup, and executed a great pitcher's pitch -- it started out in the heart of the zone before the bottom dropped out. But Soto laid off, and gave Rodriguez a Soto Shuffle for his trouble.

"He's obviously impressive in the way he's able to control the zone," Rodriguez said. "Definitely a tough at-bat. Can foul off pitches. Really makes you throw a lot. Can do damage. He's one of the best hitters in the league."

So Rodriguez went power vs. power to finish the at-bat. He fired a 97 mph fastball right down the middle, and Soto took a big hack and fouled it back. The next pitch, Rodriguez went higher, with another 97 mph fastball to the top corner of the strike zone; Soto barely got a piece. And finally, Rodriguez went even higher -- a third 97 mph fastball up-and-away -- and blew it past Soto for Strike 3.

It was a beautiful sequence, with Rodriguez going progressively higher and farther away from Soto with his four-seamer after Soto's strong take against the changeup.

A start before that, on April 23, Rodriguez and Trout went blow for blow. In Trout's first at-bat, he took Rodriguez deep with a beautifully compact inside-out swing against a 98 mph fastball that Rodriguez left in the heart of the zone.

But that just made Rodriguez go after Trout even harder in his next at-bat. He threw Trout seven four-seamers in eight pitches, and on the last one, he got his fastball up-and-in on Trout, again at 98 mph, and that was a pitch Trout couldn't catch up to.

"You know the guy's name that steps in the box," Rodriguez said. "But all of that kind of goes out the window on the field. You're really just trying to get out there and get an out."

But he's flashing a sinker, too

Rodriguez's four-seamer is a really good fastball, but another way he's started to take advantage of his movement profile this season is by mixing in a new sinker.

His sinker runs even more than his four-seamer, over 16 inches on average, and he dialed up two wicked ones at 97 and 99 mph to get a strikeout of Harper in his last start.

"He's looking to do damage, to the middle of the field, the pull side," Rodriguez said. "His heatmaps are kind of intimidating. Obviously he's a good hitter -- really just trying to keep him off-balance."

His changeup dominates the zone … and below it

Rodriguez's changeup is maybe his best pitch, even though he didn't start throwing one until 2019, when he was already in the Orioles' Minor League system. In 2024, opponents are hitting .186 against it, and he has about as many K's on his changeup (25) as his four-seamer (26).

His changeup is so effective because it has nearly identical horizontal movement to his fastball, just over 12 inches, but has a 13 mph velocity differential (96 mph vs 83 mph) and excellent depth. Rodriguez's changeup drops over three feet on its way to the plate, which is almost two feet more than his four-seamer and well above-average drop for a changeup.

It's a good enough changeup that Rodriguez can equally throw it in the zone to get strikes, or drop it below the zone to get K's.

"I'm really just gripping and ripping it, not really worried about what the pitch is doing or how it stacks up against anybody," Rodriguez said. "Just go out there and try to throw strikes with it."

As an example of the former, Rodriguez used in-zone changeups to help set up both of his strikeouts of Harper in his last start, to get back in the count during his strikeout of Judge in his start against the Yankees and to put away Trout in his first start of the year.

Plenty of pitchers will use their offspeed pitch primarily as a chase pitch, on the bottom edge of the zone or below. But Rodriguez is throwing his changeup in the strike zone half the time this season, one of the most frequent rates among offspeed users.

Highest in-zone % on offspeed pitch type, 2024
Min. 200 pitches thrown of that type

1. Tanner Bibee -- changeup: 52.2%
2. Taj Bradley -- splitter: 52.0%
3. Paul Skenes -- splitter: 51.0%
4. Grayson Rodriguez -- changeup: 50.0%
5. Tarik Skubal -- changeup: 49.4%

That's a testament to his confidence in his changeup, which he'll throw to any hitter, in any situation. And once he gets to two strikes, Rodriguez is happy to use the changeup as a chase pitch, too. That's how he put Judge away, and how he put away Julio Rodríguez on a dominant three-pitch strikeout on May 18.

And he can always wipe you out with breaking stuff

The changeup is Rodriguez's No. 1 secondary pitch, but he's got a curveball and slider, too.

He's gotten 23 strikeouts between those two pitches, and they actually might be the ones he enjoys the most.

Rodriguez said on Pitching Ninja's podcast at the end of April: "Man, I'd say throwing a 100 mph heater is a lot of fun. … Obviously the changeup's pretty special. But I'd say being able to bounce a curveball or bounce a slider for Strike 3 I think is probably my favorite right now."

So we'll leave you with one more K that's exactly that: a curveball in the dirt to fan Harper last week.

"It kind of lets you know where your stuff stacks up," Rodriguez said of facing hitters like Harper, Judge and Soto. "Obviously you're probably gonna see them in the postseason, and that's really where it matters. So really all this is, is just practice, until October."