Rewinding Rodriguez news from yesterday

Grayson Rodriguez walked off the mound at Harbor Park Wednesday night after 5 2/3 scoreless innings, an athletic trainer matching him step for step, and the hope was that a little cramping caused his exit and nothing else.

It never was just cramps. Wishful thinking from his camp, perhaps.

The Orioles announced that an MRI revealed a strained right lat muscle, and the hope was that a second opinion would show only a Grade 1. Not a Grade 2 that would extend his absence, or a Grade 3 that would require surgery.

It never was feared to be a Grade 3 – a nearly or completely full tear, where muscle rips off the bone - but the news yesterday could have been better.

Executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias met with the media and confirmed a Grade 2 strain that can carry a recovery timeline of up to 12 weeks.  

Rodriguez, 22, will report to the spring training complex in Sarasota, Fla. to begin his rehab program. There’s a chance, though we may never know, that he would have made his major league debut this week, with nothing else to prove at Triple-A Norfolk or any other minor league city.

“I mean, the timing of this really stinks, is all I can say,” Elias told the media. “He was basically at the point of checking every box you could think of in terms of his minor league work. I think that he's shown that if he's healthy and himself, we want him to be in a position to help this team next year out of spring training.”

Which brings us to the next Grayson Watch. Will the Orioles allow him to pitch later this summer if he’s completely healed, or will they wait until breaking camp in 2023?

“There's probably a lot of variability to the exact amount of weeks that this takes for him to get back out to competition,” Elias said. “It just kind of depends how it goes."

Rodriguez seems assured of being on the opening day roster, which ultimately could become the organization’s focus, but Elias didn’t rule out September 2022, calling it the “bull's eye.”

“I think that there is a potential for it to reoccur that we're going to do our best to avoid by being as careful as possible,” he said.

As we inch more toward opening day 2023.

“I think if you come back too quick, it can definitely reoccur, but if you handle this properly and carefully, the odds of that are greatly reduced,” he said. “So that's obviously what we're going to do, but there's no guarantees that it doesn't.”

Pitching again in September, at the latest, is important to Rodriguez’s frame of mind and feeds his competitive spirit.

“I think there is a lot of positives to that,” Elias said. “There also may be some negatives, just from the baseball pitching side, that we’re just going to have to see where we’re at when we get there and make that decision. We’ll make it with Grayson and his camp. We’ll make it with our pitching guys, we’ll make it with our trainers, and we’ll just do kind of the right thing overall. But the specifics of this case will drive it at this point in time, so I can’t predict either way.”

I won’t place odds or field bets. I just know, as others do, that the Orioles always err on the side of caution.  

Rodriguez told The Virginian-Pilot yesterday that he expects to pitch again this year.

“Hopefully, it’s on the quicker side of things,” he said. “Personally, it doesn’t feel as bad as what it might seem, so I should be back before the season’s over.”

If the Orioles were adamant before about taking it slow with Rodriguez, their level of caution is bound to increase with the injury.

“Obviously, you have to trust them,” he said. “The important thing is just not reinjuring it right now. Minor league baseball’s not something that’s worth risking your career for. So obviously, we’re going to do the smart thing and take some time off right now.”

The lat isn’t an especially common baseball injury because it’s such a robust muscle. We spend more time writing and talking about obliques, labrums, rotator cuffs and the ulnar collateral ligament. But the Orioles have dealt with this before.

DL Hall was shut down in 2019 with a Grade 1 lat strain while pitching for Single-A Frederick. It wasn't deemed real serious, but the season had already moved into August and there wasn't enough time to get him back in games.

“You don’t see a ton because it can handle a lot of force and strain,” said Dr. Gene Shirokobrod, a physical therapist and owner of “Recharge: Modern Health and Fitness” in Ellicott City.

“It’s interesting because it’s one of the few muscles in the body that spans multiple regions. It goes from the shoulder all the way down to your pelvis, and if you raise your arm straight up in the air, it’s responsible for bringing it down toward your hips while turning your arm in and bringing it in closer to your body. So, pretty much everything that a pitcher or any throwing athlete needs to bring the ball through the zone from the cocked position.

"You can see why a pitcher who has a bit more of a violent delivery – not saying that he does – but pitchers that have a more aggressive delivery use that muscle a ton because it drives the arm down through the zone.”

A Grade 1 strain is more of a mild irritation in some of the muscle fibers, but the complication lies in the broad area that the lat covers. The strain could be anywhere along the chain.

Further consultations with doctors after Rodriguez’s MRI brought confirmation of a Grade 2, and that’s where weeks become months.

“The biggest threat or danger is reinjury,” Shirokobrod said. “It isn’t as scary as some of the other arm issues, so you just want to make sure that the tissues can actually sustain that load.

“In my experience rehabbing athletes, and baseball players in particular, most of them have an issue with their trunk rotation. So, there’s something happening that their upper back doesn’t have as effective rotation to the side that they're throwing. And it’s just pure physics. Force has to be generated from somewhere. You have to create that velocity. And most of them will rely on the next chain in the lever, which is their shoulder, then their elbow, and if not their elbow, then their wrist. But for most of them it ends up being the elbow because the elbow is the midpoint between the wrist and the shoulder, and they have to create that angle to create that torque.”  

The Orioles began spring training with No. 1 prospect Adley Rutschman shut down with a right triceps strain. The ace of their rotation, John Means, underwent ligament-reconstructive surgery on his left elbow after only two starts. And now Rodriguez, the No. 1 pitching prospect, might be done in 2022 without appearing in a major league game.

If life isn’t fair, baseball has no chance.

Meanwhile, the Orioles optioned reliever Marcos Diplán following yesterday’s 3-2 loss to the Guardians. The open spot on the roster likely goes to infielder Chris Owings, who’s on the bereavement list.

Spenser Watkins is eligible to return from the injured list on Tuesday and said over the weekend that he feels great and is right on schedule. He’s throwing bullpen sessions without any discomfort in his elbow.

Kyle Bradish and Jordan Lyles are starting in the two-game series against the Cubs that begins Tuesday night at Camden Yards. The Cubs are starting Keegan Thompson and Marcus Stroman.

Thompson, a third-round pick out of Auburn University in 2017, is 6-0 with a 1.99 ERA and 1.081 WHIP in 12 games (four starts). He’s surrendered only three home runs in 45 1/3 innings.