BOSTON -- A teenage Ronny Rodriguez walked into Fenway Park for the first time in 2008 to watch the Red Sox take on the Astros. He was there to watch Miguel Tejada play ball in person. He had no idea he actually was looking into his future.

“I played baseball in the Dominican, but I never thought I would be a professional baseball player or be a MLB player at that time,” Rodriguez said, sitting at his locker inside the visitors’ clubhouse after the Tigers took batting practice before Wednesday's game vs. the Red Sox.

Rodriguez and his mother and father moved in 2007 from the Dominican Republic to Lawrence, Mass., a city located 30 miles north of Boston where they already had family. Rodriguez, in middle school at the time, was excited for this new chapter.

“My dream came true being in America here,” he said.

Sports were an outlet for Rodriguez, who played baseball and basketball. He didn’t have scouts at his games. Rather, baseball filled an immediate need instead of serving as a long-term goal. It helped to keep him away from bad situations in his neighborhood.

“I just did it for fun and because it’s something to get out of the violence,” he said. “There’s too much stuff, and I wanted to get out of it. So I was just spending my time on sports.”

Two years after moving to Massachusetts, Rodriguez’s mother became pregnant with his younger sister. Their house was “small,” as Rodriguez described it, and the family was growing. At the same time, Rodriguez was struggling academically. His family decided he would benefit from moving back to the Dominican Republic, where his uncle advised him to pursue baseball.

“At the time, I remember that I wasn’t hanging with good friends, they were doing bad stuff,” Rodriguez said. “I always think about my mom. I didn’t want her to feel upset because I didn’t want to go to jail and I didn’t want her to see me in bars like that. So I just took that away. That’s why I’m glad that she sent me back to the Dominican and who I am right now.”

Who he became is the starting shortstop who posted a home run, three doubles, two RBIs and three runs in the Tigers’ doubleheader sweep of the Red Sox on Tuesday. Rodriguez achieved the first multi-double performance of his career in Game 1. Members of his family, including his mother, were on hand.

“That I play here, it’s something emotional,” he said.

Rodriguez gets a taste of home when the Tigers are in Boston. During the four-game series, he visited with relatives, who still live in the same house where they first moved. He also went to dinner at one of his favorite local restaurants, where “a lot of memories came out.” Rodriguez also returns to Lawrence for a month in the offseason to stay with his family. He speaks to his parents frequently and tells them he appreciates their decisions that led to his path as a Major League player.

"I don’t read the future, but it’s got to be hard to say [what would have happened if I didn't move back to the Dominican]," Rodriguez said. "I don’t know what I would be today."