SAN FRANCISCO — Two facts about Grayson Rodriguez were well known when the Angels acquired him.
Read more OC Fair packs its 23 days with free concerts, shows
When healthy, he was one of the best young pitchers in the majors.
Also, he hadn’t been healthy in a while.
If the Angels could simply get him back on the mound, the thinking went, he would be that pitcher again.
“Trust me, I wish it was like that,” Rodriguez said. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wanted that to happen. Anytime I go out there, I expect to perform at the best of my abilities. Definitely disappointed with how the first starts have been this year.”
Rodriguez, who starts again on Friday night against the San Francisco Giants, has an 8.23 ERA through his first eight starts.
Although he missed much of the season on the injured list, that doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s been nothing like the time he spent on the injured list in 2024 and 2025 with the Baltimore Orioles.
In spring training, Rodriguez felt what was described as “soreness.” It was a mild enough condition that he didn’t even take much of a break from throwing.
In June, he felt “back tightness” and went on the IL for a second time. Again, he continued throwing. Rodriguez was pitching in a minor league game two weeks later and he was back on a big league mound two weeks after that.
Considering the Angels are not contending and they still control the 26-year-old right-hander for three seasons after this one, it was obvious that the organization was trying to manage the workload of a pitcher who had missed so much time.
As August approaches and Rodriguez feels good, the questions about his health will give way to questions about his performance.
“I think we’re close,” Rodriguez said. “There are things that are definitely getting better. There are things that I have to work on, but we’re moving in the right direction. Just going a little bit slower than what I’d like.”
Angels pitching coach Mike Maddux agreed that Rodriguez is close.
“The raw ability is still there,” Maddux said. “We just have to get the tiger to come out of the cage.”
Rodriguez, the 11th overall pick in the 2018 draft, reached the major leagues as a 23-year-old in 2023. He threw a fastball that averaged 97 mph and regularly hit 100 mph. By the middle of his rookie season, he was at times dominating. He had a 2.18 ERA over his final 11 starts of that season.
It was more of the same in 2024. He had a 3.86 ERA at the end of July, when injuries caught up to him.
Rodriguez had a lat injury in 2024, but he has said that was the result of pitching through bone spurs that he had been dealing with ever since he was in the minors in 2021. After months of frustrating rehab throughout the first half of 2025, he finally had surgery to remove the bone spurs last August.
Read more EU hits Google with $1 billion fine over its Play app store and search
Now, Rodriguez says he feels good. He’s just trying to make up for the time he lost when he wasn’t pitching. He didn’t pitch in any sort of competitive game from spring training 2025 until the spring of 2026, and the gap between major league outings was 655 days.
“Missing almost a year and a half, you get out of rhythm, you get out of the swing of things,” Rodriguez said. “There’s just a lot of little things that you have to fight every day. You just have to work and practice every day, even when you’re not pitching. That’s where the work is.”
This year his fastball is averaging 96 mph, which is exactly what it was in 2024 with the Orioles. His changeup has generated a 34% whiff rate, compared to 35% in 2024.
The movement profiles of his pitches are similar.
What’s lacking is the command. Opponents have hit .329 with a .612 slugging percentage against his fastball, typically because of too many pitches left over the middle of the plate.
Rodriguez has also walked 10% of the hitters he’s faced, which is slightly up from the 8% of his first two seasons. He’s thrown a first-pitch strike 57% of the time, down from 65% with the Orioles.
“That comes with reps, and your routine,” Maddux said. “A lot of this is focus. It’s all these things. Not only getting the body right, but getting the mind right.”
Maddux said the game reps that Rodriguez missed during his two injured list stints mean he’s still “an April pitcher right now.”
Maddux also said Rodriguez sometimes needs to be reminded that he’s not rehabbing anymore.
“That’s something that you have to get into because he’s been in the pace car for so long,” Maddux said. “It’s time to punch the gas. Let’s go.”
The frustration is clear whenever Rodriguez talks about his performance. Most of his games have provided some encouraging glimpses of his talent, with just enough mistakes to keep him from getting the results he or the Angels would like to see.
“It’s been a little bit harder than I thought it would be, getting back into like a full season, starting every day,” Rodriguez said. “It’s been harder than I wish it would be, but just got to keep going after it. There’s going to be one outing where it clicks, and then you’ll be able to stack from there, and that’s what I’m looking forward to.”
UP NEXT
Angels (RHP Grayson Rodriguez, 3-3, 8.23 ERA) at Giants (RHP Logan Webb, 5-7, 3.87 ERA), Friday, 7:15 p.m., ABTV, 830 AM
Read more Navy says it will no longer release sailors’ service history, another restriction on press access