In his last start, Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Elvin Rodriguez got bombarded by the Bronx Bombers for a start where he allowed ten runs over just 4.1 innings of work. The New York Yankees had Rodriguez’s number and were all over him from the get-go.
The Detroit Tigers have been scrambling for starting pitching amid an injury plague that has run ramped through the team’s rotation. Elvin Rodriguez was one of the band-aids the team has slapped on the rotation, and he has not had the best imitation to the big leagues.
In the start mentioned above against the Yankees from above, the opposing hitters had figured out that Rodriguez was tipping his pitches, allowing MVP candidate Aaron Judge and company to dominate. Rodriguez was giving things away when he was in the stretch, and the Yankees caught on, as did Jomboy of Jomboy Media, who delivered a great breakdown of it on Twitter.
The Yankees figure out pitcher is tipping his pitches, a breakdown pic.twitter.com/PDd8I9JAOl
— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) June 4, 2022
Jomboy’s breakdown is excellent and gives a great idea of what the Yankees saw. It’s all in his head, and it was like one of your buddies “tells” when you are playing cards, the Yankees took advantage of it, and it helped them chase Rodriguez from the game, not before he surrendered 11 hits and ten earned runs, including four home runs.
Elvin Rodriguez cannot afford to let this happen again.
The Tigers have enough issues to worry about; their pitcher tipping his pitches is something they just do not need right now. Rodriguez is slated to make his fourth start of the 2022 season as the Tigers play host to the Toronto Blue Jays. Needless to say, the Blue Jays are a dangerous lineup, possibly even more dangerous than the Yankees.
As Rodriguez prepares for his start, he’s got to be able to be better about concealing his deliveries and ensure that he’s not tipping pitches. If not, Vladimir Guererro Jr. is going to be driving the ball to deep centerfield over and over again. Rodriguez is trying to bounce back from a not-so-great start to his big league career.
Elvin Rodriguez has appeared in four games thus far; he’s got a 10.13 ERA over 16.0 innings of work, allowing 20 hits, walking seven, and surrendering 18 earned runs overall. The start against the Yankees certainly puts a damper on his stats, but they are still not pretty otherwise.
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There is much room for Rodriguez to improve, and he can do this by not tipping pitches against the Blue Jays. If he goes out there and is tipping pitches, the Blue Jays will have a field day, so he will have to do a much better job with his motions on the mound.
