Former Red Sox player thinks Eduardo Rodriguez was tipping pitches

Former Red Sox infielder Lou Merloni thinks Eduardo Rodriguez was tipping pitches

With the Red Sox poised for their first-ever Wild Card game, the last thing they need is for one of their pitchers to be tipping pitches.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, ‘tipping pitches‘ means that a pitcher is in some way indicating how he is going to pitch. An observant manager, coach, or player with a keen eye will then be able to help their team’s hitter have a better idea of how to handle what’s getting thrown at them.

Everything from how high a pitcher holds their glove to the way they tilt their head can clue in the opposing team to their pitches.

The inadvertent act of tipping pitches can lead to the opposing lineup wreaking havoc on a pitcher, and according to former Red Sox player Lou Merloni, that’s exactly what Eduardo Rodriguez was doing against the Mets on Tuesday night.

Rodriguez had been rolling for the first three innings, striking out five and only allowing one hit. But in the fourth inning, he looked like a different pitcher, issuing a leadoff walk to Francisco Lindor, followed by a single to Javier Báez, and a second walk to Pete Alonso to load the bases. He then walked in the first run of the game by issuing his third walk of the inning to J.D. Davis to make it 1-0 Mets, and a single to Michael Conforto to make it 2-0.

The inning finally ended when Rodriguez got former Red Sox outfielder Kevin Pillar and Dominic Smith out, but ERod had put his team in a 2-0 hole.

Merloni, who often live-tweets games, was frustrated by how ERod’s start went downhill:

Merloni, a Massachusetts native who spent six seasons as an infielder with his hometown Sox, has gone from playing for the Red Sox to covering them on NESN and WEEI. He’s got a keen eye on his former team every game.

Rodriguez, meanwhile, has struggled since returning from a scary bout with COVID-19 that caused him to develop viral myocarditis last year. As a result, he missed the entire 2020 season, and had a long road back to baseball. He has a 4.97 ERA over 29 starts this season, surpassing his previous career-worst 4.71 in 2016.

Both Alex Cora and Eduardo Rodriguez refuted claims that the Red Sox pitcher was tipping his pitches

During postgame media availability, both Alex Cora and Rodriguez addressed the claim that the lefty had been tipping his pitches:

"“We’ll take a look at it. There’s a reason we did it against Seattle. Obviously went back to the hands up today. So we’ll look at the video and see if something was going on. But at the end of the day, yeah, they laid off some changeups, but in the walk by Lindor, that was from the wind-up and you’ve got to attack him right there with the stuff that he had early in the game.” – Alex Cora"

"“You asked me about tipping bro? I wasn’t throwing strikes. You see the first three innings, I wasn’t able to throw the ball right where I wanted and I got those guys out pretty easily. That inning, I wasn’t able to locate my fastball and when you can’t locate your fastball, the changeup isn’t going to work. That’s what happened that inning” – Eduardo Rodriguez"

The Red Sox ultimately came back to win 6-3, but with a potential postseason run in their future, all eyes will be on Rodriguez.