Red Sox News: Eduardo Rodriguez to make season debut Thursday

Eduardo Rodriguez to make Red Sox debut Thursday

Earlier today, Red Sox skipper Alex Cora made his usual media rounds where he spoke about several topics, one of which was the returning Eduardo Rodriguez. When the day began the narrative was that the big lefty would be good to go this week and would be making his debut soon. As the afternoon progressed, the day on which Eddie would pitch became clear and the move to make room for him would also be figured out.

Cora would also make his weekly visit to WEEI’s “OMF,” where he spoke about E-Rod debuting against the Orioles on Thursday. The move that the Red Sox needs to do in order to make room for the ace, unfortunately, means that Red Sox Nation fan-favorite Tanner Houck will be heading to Worcester. AC addressed Houck’s future and made it pretty clear that the team had a game plan coming into 2021 for a five-man rotation, and they wouldn’t be straying from it.

“We feel good about him. He threw a good bullpen yesterday,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said Tuesday.

The big story here isn’t Houck heading back to the alt-site but that Eddie Rodriguez is back to being healthy and has the arm strength to make his debut this week. Coming into spring training I think we were all pretty stoked to see E-Rod back on the mound, especially after the year that he went through. Coming off of a career season and then losing his follow-up campaign to health issues, 2021 was going to be his time to shine.

However, nothing is ever written in stone and once again he saw his Opening Day start ripped from his hands and another trip to the IL was on the horizon. That’s all in the rearview mirror now and it’s time to turn our attention to Thursday and the Baltimore Orioles. The O’s are riding high after sweeping the Red Sox on Opening Day weekend at Fenway Park and now Boston gets their chance at redemption at Camden Yards.

Eddie Aces will get the ball to open not just the series in Baltimore but it’ll be opening Boston’s first road trip of 2021. During spring training, he looked absolutely fantastic and if you didn’t know about his struggle with COVID and myocarditis this past year then you’d never know he missed a day let alone an entire season. Unfortunately, that came with a bit of a cost as he may have run before he walked and ran out of gas in his arm. But thanks to the Red Sox training staff and patience from the bosses, he’s been able to get back on track.

Cora would go on to say that Rodriguez wouldn’t have any handcuffs on him for the start as they won’t be having him on any sort of pitch or inning limit. That speaks more to me than any other bit from the Red Sox. If they were still worried about the southpaw then they would have those restrictions but considering they don’t he has to be where they want him healthwise. This rotation is also in need of a leader and that top dog at the front of the line so getting Eduardo back to kick off the road trip is huge.

“We’ll take care of him but there’s not a hard number we have,” Cora said. “We do believe he’s ready to go deep into the game. So that’s the most important thing. If it was something that it was going to be short like he wasn’t ready to go five or six (innings), we’d probably think about the decision. But we do feel he can go deep into the game.”

It’s a shame that for Rodriguez to come back we have to see Houck depart, but with the injury history of this rotation, I don’t think the young righty will be gone for long. Boston’s young prospect has proven that he can hang at the big league level but it just isn’t his time. For E-Rod, this is his chance to get back to what he does best and show that what he accomplished in 2019 wasn’t a fluke.

The Red Sox started the season in the basement after getting swept by Baltimore but they’ve got a tally in the win column and a trip to visit the Orioles may be what they need. Getting their best pitcher back just in time to hit the road will also give them that extra peace of mind that they are going at it full-strength. This season may not have started how E-Rod would’ve hoped, but now he gets his chance to make up for lost time and cement another strong campaign in his career.