Gifted G-Rod seemed destined for this moment in MLB spotlight

It was a damp, humid Wednesday morning during Spring Training in Sarasota, Fla. Grayson Rodriguez arrived at the Orioles’ clubhouse early, as he often does. He went through his camp routine: showering, putting on workout clothes and then sitting down at his locker amid the typical chitchat happening around him.

With a bit of downtime, Rodriguez pulled out his iPhone and played a billiards game. He joked around with some teammates and sipped his coffee. Then, he completed his work for the day before eventually departing the Ed Smith Stadium complex.

On to the next one.

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However, there was a slight, subtle difference in Rodriguez’s demeanor on the following day -- a start day.

This was Gameday Grayson, a side of the 23-year-old right-hander who slowly emerged during his time at Central Heights High School in Nacogdoches, Texas, and fully developed over his first four professional seasons, inspired by some of baseball’s fiercest pitchers.

“Watching games on TV, the intensity of like Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, those guys -- they’re not just goofing around on the mound,” Rodriguez said.

There are a lot of ways to describe Rodriguez. A gifted athlete. A hard worker. A steady, reliable presence. A competitive trash-talker, but also a supportive teammate. A rising star.

When it’s Rodriguez’s turn to take a mound, though, expect a Scherzer-like aggressiveness combined with a Verlander-esque focus. It’s how Rodriguez has put himself on the big league doorstep, set to make his MLB debut in his home state on Wednesday afternoon, when the Orioles face the Rangers at Globe Life Field in Arlington.

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All of Rodriguez’s traits helped lead him to the Majors. His ferocity on gameday could be the one that brings him success there.

*****

When Rodriguez was growing up in rural Texas, he would beg his parents to stay up late to watch the end of Astros and Rangers games.

When Rodriguez was playing on one of his first Little League teams, 11 of the 12 players on the squad would rush for the nearby playground as soon as a practice ended. He stayed back and pleaded for his dad to hit him more grounders or fly balls -- which he did until it got dark.

At what point did Gilbert Rodriguez realize his son was a blossoming baseball junkie?

“I think when he was in his mother’s womb,” the elder Rodriguez joked.

It actually wasn’t many years after that when Gilbert -- a former outfielder at Sul Ross State University, a Division III school in Alpine, Texas -- could tell his toddler son had a bright baseball future.

At the age of 2, Grayson hit off a tee in the living room and successfully put plastic bat to plastic ball on easy pitches tossed to him by his father. By 3 or 4, his eyes were glued to games on the television every evening.

“Baseball was always on the TV, and I was always outside playing it,” Rodriguez said.

The latter became even more appealing when Gilbert constructed a baseball field on the family’s 13-acre property in Nacogdoches. He opted to build it early in Grayson’s childhood after an older baseball team had taken over the downtown practice field his son’s T-ball squad had previously used.

Gilbert removed the bushes and shrubbery that were in the way and went to work. Over the years, the field expanded. He built fences and a pitching mound, constructed a backstop, installed high-quality grass and continually found ways to upgrade the playing surface, increasing the size of it as Grayson grew.

By the time Grayson was 7, it’s where he spent much of his time. Baseball quickly overshadowed other sports (such as basketball, which he played up until middle school) and became his life -- not a surprise considering the early signs.

“We pretty much knew right away he had a knack for it,” Gilbert said. “He loved it. That’s all he ever wanted to do.”

Grayson’s talent was apparent. He mostly had success as a hitter -- becoming a slugging first baseman in his early teenage years -- but he also took pitching lessons with numerous coaches, laying the groundwork for developing a strong arsenal.

With the incredible baseball abilities Rodriguez possessed from a young age, all he needed was to put in the work to become great. And that was never going to be a problem.

*****

Travis Jackson was hired to be the varsity baseball coach and a physical education teacher at Central Heights High School in Nacogdoches heading into the 2016-17 school year. The program there had a rich tradition, but Jackson didn’t know too much about the players he was inheriting ahead of that season.

Then, Jackson heard about a 6-foot-5 junior with a potent bat and a fastball sitting around 92-93 mph who was committed to play at Texas A&M University -- Grayson Rodriguez.

While house hunting in Nacogdoches, Jackson met Rodriguez’s mother, Temple. She informed the new coach that Rodriguez was pitching that summer in the Connie Mack World Series, a prestigious tournament for high schoolers culminating in Farmington, N.M. So Jackson went home, booted up his computer and found a live stream for Rodriguez’s next start on the mound.

Jackson was obviously impressed by Rodriguez’s velocity. But something else stood out.

“He had so much control, and control about his demeanor and everything,” Jackson said. “And his calmness in the game and patience up there on the mound was above anybody else that I’ve ever been around in high school baseball.”

In Jackson’s first year at the helm, Rodriguez helped power Central Heights to the 2017 Texas 3A state championship.

“Really just a good program, a lot of knowledge there. Competitive atmosphere,” Rodriguez said. “It’s just known for winning baseball games.”

Rodriguez garnered attention from MLB scouts, mostly profiled as a shortstop, a position he played during his final two seasons at Central Heights. Their opinions changed the summer after Rodriguez’s junior year, when he began going to APEC, a training facility in Tyler, Texas, that Rodriguez drove an hour to and from each day (and still does for offseason workouts).

By putting on 20 pounds to increase his weight to 220, Rodriguez had developed larger calf muscles, allowing him to push harder off the hill and up his velocity ahead of his final high school season.

“When we first saw him on the mound as a senior and he got up to 98, that’s when it clicked in,” Jackson said. “It was like, ‘This guy’s real.’”

It wasn’t the only reason why professional baseball seemed imminent for Rodriguez. He also carried a business-like approach to the sport, especially on days he was pitching.

Rodriguez arrived at the field, toed the rubber, dominated his competition without any celebratory actions or gestures and moved on.

“It was kind of like a calm intensity, though. It’s like he was locked in from the get-go,” Jackson said. “There was no shaking him.”

*****

Rodriguez’s intention to play college baseball vanished June 4, 2018. He and his family knew it was likely he’d be taken in the first round of the MLB Draft that night, but they weren’t sure how early. They were aware Colorado, owners of the No. 22 pick, had interest.

The wait was half that long. At No. 11, Rodriguez was selected by Baltimore. Instead of heading to College Station to begin an SEC career, he opted to sign for $4.3 million and reported to Sarasota to start his professional journey.

“To come to a franchise that’s as rich in baseball history as the Orioles are, it’s pretty special,” Rodriguez said.

After dominating the Gulf Coast League in 2018, Rodriguez moved up to Single-A Delmarva at the start of ‘19. He learned from the daily routines of more experienced Minor Leaguers while developing one of his own. He faced tougher competition -- even if his 2.68 ERA and 0.99 WHIP in 20 starts made it look easy.

That summer is also when Rodriguez first worked with catcher Adley Rutschman, who was in his first pro season after being selected No. 1 overall in the 2019 MLB Draft. The battery represented hope for the O’s future amid a rebuild that involved tearing down and rebuilding the big league team and organizational infrastructure.

Rutschman can’t recall a specific moment in which he realized Rodriguez was a special talent -- there were too many of them. The memories of the righty’s early starts in the low levels of the Minors blend together because of the consistent results he produced and the reliably steady presence he brought to the mound every five days.

“When you watch a guy over the course of days, weeks, months, you really get to see where they are,” Rutschman said, “and I think that’s the coolest part about him.”

Rodriguez’s teammates appreciated his actions of support. He showed a willingness to try to help everybody improve, and he’d be right there on the top step of the dugout cheering them on on days he wasn’t pitching.

On start days, Rodriguez was a man with a purpose -- and he showed his determination to succeed in an even more stark manner than he had in the past.

“When he comes to the field that day, it’s 100%, ‘I’m locked into that game, I’m going out and that’s my game, that’s my day,’” said left-hander Drew Rom, Rodriguez’s longtime Minors rotation-mate, including in Delmarva in '19. “Then after that, he goes back to being just the Grayson that everyone knows.”

*****

How do you fuel a competitive fire as strong as Rodriguez’s when there are no real baseball games to be played? He had to figure that out in 2020, when the Minor League season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rodriguez spent the '20 campaign at the Orioles’ alternate training site in Bowie, Md. He bonded with fellow youngsters such as Rutschman and infielder Gunnar Henderson -- guys who weren’t nearly experienced enough to get a big league callup yet and spent the summer playing intrasquad games and trying to find ways to improve without Minors action.

Some veteran players were there, too, aiming to stay in shape and be ready if a spot opened on Baltimore’s roster.

“I think being around the older guys definitely helped a lot, seeing older hitters,” Rodriguez said. “It’s tough not being able to throw in games, but at the same time, you’re around a lot of guys that have been in the big leagues.”

It was also during this period when a tight-knit friendship burgeoned between Rodriguez and left-hander DL Hall, another one of the organization’s top pitching prospects.

No games? No problem. Rodriguez and Hall competed in everything -- seeing who could throw harder one day, battling to throw the better changeup the next. And with it came trash talk, which, of course, was competitive in its own right. Naturally, Hall thinks he’s better than Rodriguez at that, too.

“We always give him crap, I say, ‘Just think of the first thing a 12-year-old would say, and that’s what Grayson would say,’” Hall said.

It could have been easy for less-experienced Minor Leaguers to lose focus at the alt site. Instead, Rodriguez and Hall made the most of it. Their bonding helped them both improve, as they frequently talked mechanics and helped each other become better pitchers.

The duo also dreamed about one day becoming co-anchors of the O’s staff.

“When we’re together on a team, we compete with each other, we make each other better, we bounce things off each other,” Hall said. “And I think it’s super-exciting to think about us being in a big league rotation together, because I know that we’re just going to build off of each other, and I think it will be a scary one-two punch.”

After Rodriguez and Hall both made the jump from Double-A Bowie in 2021 to Triple-A Norfolk in ‘22, it seemed that dream wasn’t far away.

*****

An MLB debut was nearly inevitable for Rodriguez in 2022. His rise through the Minors had been equally rapid and impressive. He was set to open the season at Triple-A, but it likely wasn’t going to take long for him to get the long-awaited call to The Show.

And then, Rodriguez encountered the biggest obstacle of his pro career thus far. One that he had avoided for the majority of his baseball life, especially since getting drafted.

The injury bug.

Rodriguez had a 2.32 ERA through his first 10 starts of the year for Norfolk and was through 5 2/3 scoreless innings vs. Jacksonville last June 1, when he began to feel discomfort in his right lat. Tides manager Buck Britton removed Rodriguez from the game. He was later diagnosed with a strain that would sideline him for the next three months, delaying his big league arrival.

“That was probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to do as a manager, is go to the mound and take him out with a trainer, because of how good he was pitching and the opportunity that could have been coming his way,” said Britton, who had also managed Rodriguez in Bowie in ‘21 before taking over the Norfolk job last year.

Rodriguez was instructed to take two weeks off before beginning his rehab program. He went home to Texas, where his new house was in the process of being built. That slightly helped take his mind off the injury, but Gilbert Rodriguez said his son felt a bit “lost,” being put in this unfamiliar situation.

So what else did Rodriguez do? The same thing he did when he was 3 years old: watch baseball and learn from it.

“During the Minor League season, you don’t really get to watch any games on TV,” Rodriguez said. “Really just kind of taking a step back, looking at some delivery stuff from mine, we had that extra time. Being able to look at pitch movement and some things to work on when we got back healthy.”

When the time came, Rodriguez traveled to Florida and put in all the necessary work to recover in “Grayson fashion,” as Britton put it. Although there wasn’t enough time for a promotion to the big leagues, Rodriguez returned to game action in September and made six starts before the end of the Minor League season.

Because he’d now experienced adversity, Rodriguez may have been even more intense on his start days than before. He wasn’t going to let the lost time negatively impact his mindset.

“The thing I love about Grayson is on gameday, man, there’s a switch that gets flipped,” Britton said, “and he walks around the clubhouse a little differently than he does the four or five days in between.”

Rodriguez reported to Spring Training this year and shared how he felt his stuff has gotten even better. The offseason work on his pitches has paid off. His curveball is sharper. His changeup is getting more spin. His cutter brings a bit more oomph, coming out of his hand harder.

Now, the time has finally arrived for Rodriguez to take that intimidating arsenal -- along with his fearsome gameday mentality -- to baseball’s premier stage.