Grayson Rodriguez Expectations

[dystopia]

23 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

I was thinking if Bradish does go for Game 162 it might make sense to have Grayson be the #1. Otherwise Bradish would be going on short rest and Grayson would have a longer layoff. Means would be a bold move.

Not only would Bradish NOT being going on short rest in this scenario, he’d be getting an *extra* day of rest because the ALDS doesn’t start until 10/7. Plus, he’d probably only throw about 50 pitches in his last start. No reason to take any chances.  

[banks703]

They talked on the broadcast last night about how GrayRod was using his cutter during his first ten starts and how he was getting knocked around on the heaters. Ben mentioned how it's difficult as a pitcher to effectively command both the cutter and the slider and when they sent GrayRod down, they told him to work on FB command. I haven't heard anyone affiliated with the team say it outright that they told him to stop throwing the cutter (Cakes would say it about both GrayRod and TWells all the time and I can recall at least once during an in-game convo with whoever was mic'd up, Cakes said to tell Tyler to stop throwing the cutter). 

I can't find any data that shows that GrayRod has thrown a single cutter since his Aug 2 start against the Jays (he threw one to Vlad Jr.)

Ben mentioned that he leads major league starters this year in 100+mph pitches and (I think it was Cakes) said that when he came back up to the big club, he stopped pitching like he was trying to strike out everyone.

I haven't looked at the data enough to support or disagree with that statement but he's been so good since coming back from Norfolk that he's lowered his 7.35 ERA from his first 45 1/3 innings by three runs down to 4.35 over his last 75 2/3 innings, throwing to a 2.58 ERA over that span. I saw yesterday that only Bradish has been better over that time.

I am confident that we can declare (at least I will) that the GrayRod that we've seen over the last 75 2/3 innings is the pitcher that he is going to be for a while. Damn it, it's nice to have him and KB and Means and even Kremer going into the postseason and next year with GrayRod, Bradish and Kremer all locked up at least through 2026.