Eduardo Rodriguez took the mound for the Tigers on Opening Day because, in the words of A.J. Hinch, “He’s been on the biggest stage.” Or, as Red Sox manager Alex Cora said on Tuesday, “Opening Day is special, but he’s pitched in some bigger games in his career.”
“That outing in LA, that was huge for us,” Cora said.
Four years ago, the Red Sox and Dodgers played the longest game in World Series history, an 18-inning marathon in which Nathan Eovaldi may have won the series for Boston by losing Game 3. Eovaldi pitched six innings of relief before taking the loss around 3:30 am ET, saving the rest of his team’s bullpen and earning a salute from Cora in the clubhouse after the game. On Tuesday, in the dugout at Comerica Park, Cora saluted Rodriguez.
“We can talk everything about Nathan in Game 3, but we were aggressive with Nate because we knew we had Eddie,” Cora said. “I can say it now, but numbers wise, Eduardo was kind of our best matchup against the Dodgers. His fastball up, his breaking ball … That’s why we were so confident, like, ‘OK, we can go with Nate for whatever this game lasts and we got Eddie – and he did an amazing job.”
Rodriguez took the ball in Game 4 and shut the Dodgers down through five innings. He bent in the sixth, but pitched well enough for the Red Sox to rally and take a 3-1 series lead. They would seal the deal in Game 5. For Rodriguez, it capped a breakout season in his fourth year in the bigs and his first under Cora, who would set the bar higher for his young pitcher in the years ahead.
“Like I tell everybody who asks me, he was like a brother, like a father-mentor to me,” Rodriguez said Tuesday of Cora. “He helped me a lot to be where I am right now and I really appreciate everything that he did for me when I was over there.”
Before he earned Cy Young votes in 2019, before he signed a big-money deal with the Tigers in 2021, Rodriguez got a public rebuke from Cora. And Cora got the cold shoulder from Rodriguez. After Rodriguez made a so-so start against the Mets early in spring training in 2019, laboring through two innings on a day his manager wanted him to go three, Cora told the media, “He’s been in the league for a long time. It’s time for him to step up.”'
Cora smiled on Tuesday about the idea of serving as a ‘father figure’ to Rodriguez -- "He said that?" -- and said their relationship “was a good one. I think it was more (about) the way I handled him.”
“I just felt – and A.J. will probably find out – you gotta push him," Cora said Tuesday. "You see him now, you see where he’s at physically and mentally, there’s a lot of people in (our clubhouse) that had to do with his success. He’s very structured now. He understands what he has to do. I just felt like you gotta challenge him, that’s the word I use. It started in Port St. Lucie. He had Dominic Smith in an 0-2 count, two outs in his first game of spring training and he walked him.”
This bothered Cora (in case you couldn’t tell, four years later), who had to pull Rodriguez after the second inning because of his pitch count. Inefficiency had been a snag in the lefty's young career. He rarely pitched past the fifth or sixth. He had never reached 140 innings in a season. Cora wanted more out of Rodriguez, who wanted the same out of himself. Figuring he could light a fire under the 25-year-old …
“I took a jab at him through the media. The next day he didn’t talk to me at all,” Cora recalled with a laugh. “And I was like, yeah, this is going the way I envisioned. From then on, his bullpens were really good. He takes his craft very seriously. He was one of the best lefties in ’19.”
And one of the most durable. Rodriguez tied for the MLB lead that season in starts (34) and finished third among lefties in innings pitched (203.1). He went 19-6 with a 3.81 ERA and more than a strikeout per inning and finished sixth in the voting for AL Cy Young.
“And then obviously ‘20 happened,” said Cora.
Rodriguez contracted COVID-19 in spring training that year, which led to a severe case of myocarditis that cost him the entire season. But he bounced back to make 32 starts for the Red Sox in 2021, pitching as well as he had in his career despite mediocre stats on the surface. Hinch and the Tigers saw past them, signing Rodriguez to a five-year, $77 million deal to anchor their rotation. On Wednesday (weather-permitting), he’ll take the mound against his former team.
“I know he had his up and downs (last) season, but he did an amazing job and he got his dream come true – get that big money and support his family,” Cora said. “He probably would have loved to stay here, but it just didn’t work out. We’re very proud of him, but tomorrow we gotta kick his ass.”
Rodriguez, indeed, was inclined to stay with the Red Sox, where he made his big-league debut at the age of 22, pitched in six playoff series and formed a second family over the first seven years of his career. He said his time with Boston “means a lot in my heart ... part of my history I’m never going to forget.” But the Red Sox couldn’t offer him the same money as the Tigers – nor the chance to play with his countryman and close friend Miguel Cabrera – so Rodriguez, along with his wife and their two young children, happily made the move to Detroit.
“This is a business, man,” he said. “When you make a decision, you gotta make it. I did it for my family, too. Now it’s my time to be here.”
Rodriguez can’t wait to face his close friend Xander Bogaerts on Wednesday. Asked about the secret to getting him out – wouldn’t he know after all those years? – Rodriguez smiled and said, “I don’t know, I gotta study him a little bit.” He’s eager to face all of his former teammates, but noted without sentimentality, “Friends are for outside the lines.”
“It can be my father, my mother, my brother, if somebody steps in the box against me I’m going to strike them out, I’m going to get them out,” Rodriguez said. “That’s the way I see it, that’s the way I learned. … No matter who is over there, you gotta get him out because he's going to hit a homer off you if you leave something over the middle, even if it’s your friend."
Wednesday is a big game for Rodriguez, one he’s had circled for several months. It’s also just another game. He’s pitched in the World Series, after all. Someday soon, he hopes to pitch there again for the Tigers.