Asher on getting another start, Joseph on catching E-Rod

After his short outing in Houston on Sunday, right-hander Alec Asher had to wait a couple of days to find out if he would get another chance in the Orioles rotation.

He will. Asher will start at Camden Yards on Friday night against Boston.

"It's great. It was disappointing what happened that last start. It happens, but I'll go back out there tomorrow and go at it again," he said this afternoon.

Asher threw 54 pitches Sunday at Minute Maid Park, gaving up six hits, six runs and one homer as his ERA jumped from 2.17 to 3.77.

"You try to take what you can from it," he said of taking a loss against the Astros. "I fell behind a lot of hitters and I just had to give in and that happens. So you try not to take your bad outings too serious and go from there."

After making six straight relief outings between starts, he said moving back into the rotation was not an adjustment that hampered him at all.

"I've done it for a long time, so I didn't really think about it too much. It was just one of those games where I didn't have it that day," Asher said.

Speaking of pitchers, the Orioles face a left-hander tonight that many in their organization know very well. Eduardo Rodriguez (4-1, 2.77 ERA) gets the start for Boston. He is tied for ninth in the American League in ERA.

Signed by the Orioles as an international amateur for $175,000 out of Valencia, Venezuela in January 2010, Rodriguez became a top 100 national prospect on the O's watch.

After a 2013 season where he went 10-7 with a 3.41 ERA between Single-A Frederick and Double-A Bowie, Rodriguez was ranked No. 65 by Baseball America. Three times he was rated among the O's top five prospects. But at the trade deadline in 2014, he was dealt to Boston for reliever Andrew Miller.

Back during that 2013 season, his catcher at Bowie was Caleb Joseph. Today, Joseph remembered the young Rodriguez he saw on the O's farm back then.

"The stuff was tremendous then and you could tell right away he was going to be a major league pitcher," Joseph said. "He was more erratic though. He liked throwing a lot of off-speed. We tried to really get him honed in working on his fastball. In the minors, you have to find that balance between getting outs and producing but also developing for what is ahead.

"You are not strictly judged on can you get guys out in Double-A. I mean, you have to get guys out there to later have a chance in the majors. But the way you get guys out in Double-A sometimes doesn't translate to the way you have to get guys out in the big leagues.

"I remember he was primarily fastball-slider with a good changeup. But he liked to use his slider a lot. Now it seems to me he is fastball-changeup and the slider is kind of his third pitch. But he's got a real smooth easy windup and it explodes out of his hand. It comes in hot. His 92, 93 (mph) can feel more like 95 and 96."

Joseph was right about the pitch usage. This year, Rodriguez is throwing a four-seam fastball 64 percent of the time, and using a changeup 19 percent and slider nine percent of the time.

You might figure it would help Joseph tonight when batting against Rodriguez because of his knowledge from catching him. Joseph is 2-for-2 against the lefty. But he pointed out today that facing a pitcher and catching a pitcher are two very different things.

"I've gotten a couple of hits off him," Joseph said. "Maybe (it helps) a little bit. But that viewpoint from standing up at the plate to squatting down behind the plate is so totally different."