Boston Red Sox left-handed starter Rodriguez (knee) to be placed on the 10-day disabled list.
According to Evan Drellich of CSNNE, Red Sox starter Eduardo Rodriguez suffered a right knee subluxation during Thursday’s loss to the Baltimore Orioles. The specific injury has been described as a “partial dislocation” of the knee he is anatomically prone to injury.
Reliever Brandon Workman will take the open roster spot for the time being. However, it’s more than likely that Brian Johnson will come up from Triple-A Pawtucket to fill the open rotation spot when Rodriguez’s turn comes up again. With an off-day on Monday, that may not be until next weekend.
The realization that Rodriguez is hitting the disabled list comes less than 24 hours after he was completely rocked by the Orioles. In a rare poor start, he gave up seven earned runs on four home runs and eight overall hits in 5.2 innings. By far his worst performance of the season.
If you’re looking for a potential cause of injury – he slipped and fell throwing in the bullpen prior to the start. And it didn’t look pretty.
He would continue his warm up and pitch the game regardless. Whether this was a case of him not actually feeling injured until the next day, or pitching through pain because he felt he needed too, this is far from an ideal situation for the Red Sox. As well as one that probably could have been avoided given the optics of the injury. Burning through the bullpen in the first game of a four-game series against a division rival isn’t optimal, but neither is losing your second best starter for a minimum of ten days.
Rodriguez was in the midst of a career season, and looked poised to break out as the top-3 starter he was projected to be when he came over to the Red Sox. Aside from Chris Sale, Rodriguez has been the best pitcher in the rotation all season and a welcomed surprise for a player that was expected to start the year in Triple-A.
He entered last night’s game with a 2.77 ERA and 59 strikeouts in 55.1 innings pitched, which makes his DL stint a huge loss. Especially at a time when the rotation was really taking shape following David Price‘s return from an elbow injury that delayed his season by two months. For the first time all year, the club had the 5-man order they had hoped for prior to Opening Day.
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It’s too early to tell how serious the injury is at this point, though be sure to check back with BoSox Injection as we will update the situation as soon as the news comes out. At this point, though, fans should be cautious about their outlook. This is the same joint that gave Rodriguez trouble in 2016 and was aggravated over the winter.