Orioles right-hander Grayson Rodriguez was scratched from his scheduled start against the Blue Jays due to what the club later announced as “right lat/teres discomfort.” As noted by Matt Weyrich of The Baltimore Sun, Rodriguez began to warm up for his start before appearing to say to pitching coach Drew French, “I don’t feel right.” Rodriguez left the field for the clubhouse after the conversation and was replaced by right-hander Albert Suarez as the game’s starter.
Details regarding the severity of Rodriguez’s discomfort are minimal, so it’s unclear at this point if the right-hander will require a trip to the IL or when he could next be expected to take the mound. After all, the righty’s discomfort will surely bring to mind his stint on IL due to shoulder inflammation earlier this year that ultimately lasted nearly three weeks. Rodriguez also has a history of lat issues, having dealt with a lat strain as a prospect back in 2022 that ultimately cost him three-and-a-half months.
Regardless of how long Rodriguez ends up missing, the news is a worrying development for the Orioles just one week after the trade deadline as they gear up for a run at their second consecutive AL East crown and another postseason run. Injuries in the starting rotation have been frequent in Baltimore this year. The club lost three starters (Kyle Bradish, John Means and Tyler Wells) to UCL surgery back in June and has also previously saw right-hander Dean Kremer spend time on the shelf in addition to Rodriguez’s aforementioned shoulder issue earlier this year. Those injury woes led the Orioles to stock up on starting pitching depth ahead of last week’s trade deadline as they swung deals to bring right-hander Zach Eflin and lefty Trevor Rogers into the fold.
While those additions helped to shore up the club’s shaky back of the rotation, losing Rodriguez for a significant period would be a deeply worrisome outcome as the 24-year-old has emerged as the club’s clear No. 2 starter behind ace Corbin Burnes. Rodriguez has generally pitched quite well in the sophomore season of his career with a decent 3.86 ERA in 116 2/3 innings of work across 20 starts that’s matched with even better peripheral numbers. He’s struck out 26.5% of batters faced while walking just 7.3%. That’s left him with a strong 3.67 FIP and an even better 3.60 SIERA, the latter of which is good for top 25 among all qualified starters this year and slightly better than Burnes’s own 3.71 figure.
Should Rodriguez end up missing time, it seems likely that the club would turn to Suarez to take over his spot in the rotation on a more permanent basis. The 34-year-old journeyman last appeared in the majors back in 2017 before the Orioles brought him in on a minor league deal and added him to their roster, but he’s done well in a swing role since then, with a 3.75 ERA in 15 starts including his five scoreless innings of work filling in for Rodriguez this evening. Other options to replace Rodriguez in the rotation (or Suarez in a long relief role if he returns to starting) would be youngster Cade Povich, who has struggled to a 6.27 ERA in eight starts in the majors this year, and lefty Cole Irvin, who was recently outrighted off the 40-man roster. Top pitching prospect Chayce McDermott, who made his big league debut in a spot start earlier this year, may have been a possible candidate to help fill in for Rodriguez in the majors, but the club announced that he’s been placed on the minor league IL with a stress reaction in his right scapula.