Eduardo Rodriguez closed out the first half of the Major League Baseball season with a 6-5 record and 5.52 ERA.
The Red Sox pitcher scattered nine hits and four earned through five innings of work in Boston’s 5-4 loss to the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday afternoon.
Rodriguez started the season by winning five of his first six starts, but he then fell into a slump and went winless in his next eight. He did earn his sixth win of the year against the New York Yankees on June 27 but has not won since.
The lefty felt he was executing his pitches throughout his outing, but surrendered five singles through the first two innings on what all were bloopers before giving up back-to-back homers in the fifth.
“I feel like I was executing my pitches,” Rodriguez said after the game over Zoom. “It’s hard when you know your pitches are working pretty good and they start hitting balls like that. Those things happen. … I have to get out of those (four innings). Blooper, homer, whatever, that’s something you have to take out of your game.”
Still, he knows he went out and grinded away during the first half of the season.
“A grinder. That’s how I see my first half,” Rodriguez said. “Every start I go out there and just (kept) grinding and grinding and grinding. Been feeling really good the last couple starts. … I gotta go and execute the next half because if not, we’re gonna be start pushing toward the playoffs. And I know what I gotta do to get the team in position to win every start that I go out there.”
Here are some other notes from Thursday’s Red Sox-Angels game:
— Despite the outcome of the game, manager Alex Cora still liked what he saw from Rodriguez.
“Those two pitches (on the home runs), I bet he wants them back,” Cora said. “Overall, we don’t like the result. But the stuff was good. He made some good pitches.”
— What Cora didn’t like, however, was a double play in the sixth inning that he (unsuccessfully) challenged after it appeared Jose Iglesias did not touch second base.
“The angles I saw, I didn’t agree with (umpire) Alfonso (Marquez),” Cora said. “Obviously he’s closer than me. I didn’t agree with the call.”
— The Red Sox were on the cusp of victory for the entire game.
They only were down as much as two, came within a run on two separate occasions, but the bad call at second base and Darwinzon Hernandez serving up Jared Walsh’s second home run of the day kept Boston from winning the series.
— Cora said pregame he thought an injured list move may come.
Danny Santana left Tuesday’s game with a quad injury and Marwin Gonzalez has been nursing a hamstring ailment. Kevin Plawecki could be activated Friday but wasn’t ready to come off the IL Wednesday.
“We felt like both guys were progressing,” Cora said. “Both of them, in an emergency, were going to be available.”
— The Red Sox now enjoy an off-day Thursday before welcome the Philadelphia Phillies to Fenway Park for three-game set before the All-Star break.
