How Eduardo Rodriguez's star turn in the WBC final is carrying into the MLB season

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With time to reflect, Rodriguez is certain of something. “We have had this discussion a little bit the last couple of weeks, about which is the No. 1 sport in Venezuela,” Rodriguez said this week, by the Arizona Diamondbacks’ dugout before a game at Citi Field. “But at the end of the day, we see that it is baseball. Soccer is really big in my country — really, really big. But after this WBC, when we see how many people were in the street and all that, we were like, ‘OK, baseball is No. 1.’” And so is Venezuela, the fourth different WBC champion in four tournaments, after Japan won the first two in 2006 and 2009. The early Venezuela teams were loaded, with stars like Bobby Abreu, Miguel Cabrera, Félix Hernández, Magglio Ordóñez, Francisco Rodríguez and Johan Santana. But this was the first team to reach the title game, and Rodriguez, the oldest pitcher on the staff, got the call at the end. “I was not nervous, just excited,” said Rodriguez, who turned 33 on Tuesday. “I’ve been in a lot of different kinds of games, the World Series and all that. I was more excited because of what it meant to us.” Rodriguez allowed one hit and one walk, striking out four in 57 pitches — a fitting number. He has worn No. 57 for all of his MLB teams (the Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers and the Diamondbacks) to honor Santana, the Team Venezuela pitching coach, who wore it in a standout 12-year career. Santana last pitched in 2012 for the New York Mets, but he attempted a comeback two years later with the Baltimore Orioles. Rodriguez was a top Orioles prospect at the time, and while he couldn’t take as much velocity off his changeup as Santana did, he was eager to learn. “(Santana) was my mentor back then,” Rodriguez said. “And then I started really pitching and learning a little bit more from him and using everything. He taught me a lot back then, and then at WBC, we had the same conversation that we always had.” The theme, as usual, was mixing his pitches better. Five days before the finale, Rodriguez had been hit hard against the Dominican Republic, allowing three runs in just 2 2/3 innings of a 7-5 loss. Juan Soto and Arizona teammate Ketel Marte took him deep. “It looked like he was just up there trying to beat everybody with his fastball,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. “But the second time around, I was watching and texting with our pitching coach, Brian Kaplan. We were talking about how impressive it was that he was pitching. It looked like Salvador Perez got a hold of him and said, ‘This is what you gotta do, don’t shake me off, I got you.’ And he got into a really nice rhythm.” For Lovullo, getting that message across has been a challenge in Rodriguez’s first two seasons with the Diamondbacks, who signed him to a four-year, $80 million contract after their pennant run in 2023. In 39 starts for Arizona before this season, Rodriguez was 12-13 with a 5.02 ERA, sometimes fighting the same old problems. “Early in my career, I had a plan and all that, but I was being more emotional,” he said. “Pitching with emotion sometimes is hard because sometimes that’s not the right pitch. You feel like you want to throw it, but that’s not the pitch that we have in the plan. But as I go on in my career, I start to learn and see how it’s supposed to go, what is real pitching compared to just throwing.” With Santana reiterating that lesson before the U.S. game, Rodriguez thrived. He continued to roll through his first two starts, using his fastball less than 30 percent of the time (well below his career average of 46.4 percent) and allowing no earned runs through 12 innings. Facing the Mets’ Nolan McLean on Thursday night, he worked six strong innings (5 hits, 1 run) for his first victory, to go with a 0.50 ERA. The pitching matchup was a rematch of the WBC final, a game that Rodriguez could not classify as his finest performance because of the pitch-count restrictions. While he has never completed any of his 238 career starts, he has carried a perfect game into the seventh and a no-hitter into the eighth. “So those were way better, you know what I mean?” he said. “But, like, meaning-wise, that’s the best game I’ve ever pitched in my life, because of the meaning to my country and all that.” Part of the narrative around the WBC is always how much it means, relative to the World Series. As Derek Jeter said on a Fox pregame show: “I think the people that say it’s bigger than the World Series never played in the World Series.” Jeter, a five-time World Series champion, would get no argument from Yankees fans — and most U.S. fans would probably agree, too. The way Rodriguez sees it, both events can be important in different ways. “One is your job, the other is for your country,” he said. “I think that one is more (about) pride. That’s what I feel is different. When you play for pride, you play with all the pride that you have in you.” Davey Lopes, who died on Wednesday at 80 years old, was a prolific base stealer who knew how to pick his spots. When Lopes retired in 1987, nobody in history had as many steals (557) with as high a success rate (83 percent) as he did. In three decades as a coach and manager, Lopes helped several teams excel in that aspect of the game. Most notably, Lopes was instrumental in helping the Philadelphia Phillies win four consecutive division titles from 2007 to 2010. In those seasons, which included a championship in 2008, the Phillies had an 84.3 percent success rate on stolen bases, 6 percent better than any other team. They ranked fourth overall in steals, with 501. Chase Utley, in particular, excelled under Lopes, stealing successfully on 59 of 64 attempts — a 92.1 percent success rate. “Davey had a tremendous impact on our success over the years, especially with our baserunning,” Utley said in an email. “He was a true student of the game, with an instinctive ability to pick up on details — often spotting something on nearly every pitcher that gave us a daily edge. That insight was invaluable in the moment, but just as importantly, his guidance instilled a lasting sense of confidence throughout our team.” Lopes later coached for the Los Angeles Dodgers, his primary team as a player. He was part of a draft class that might be the best ever by a team in a single season. In the 1968 draft — in all its variations — the Dodgers found nine players who would spend at least a decade in the majors. Besides Lopes, the group included Doyle Alexander, Bill Buckner, Ron Cey, Joe Ferguson, Steve Garvey, Tom Paciorek, Bobby Valentine and Geoff Zahn. Seven of them would appear for the Dodgers in the 1974 World Series, and Cey, Garvey and Lopes were still in the lineup for their title in 1981. It’s been a tough start to the season for St. Louis Cardinals starter Dustin May. In two starts, both losses, he’s given up 17 hits and 13 earned runs. Maybe he’s just missing an old friend. In his first six major-league seasons, with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox, May wore No. 85. As a Cardinal, he’s wearing No. 3. The 82-digit drop is not a record (Taijuan Walker went from 99 to 00 when he changed teams in 2020), but it’s striking for uniform nerds. The new number is unusually low for a pitcher, and the old number was very high for any player. But it fit May just fine. “It was my first spring training number, and I just thought it was cool that nobody else had worn it in Dodger history,” he said earlier this spring. “So I was kind of like, ‘Cool. I’ll just be the first. And I think it’s a pretty neat number, so that’s why I kept it. I got offered the chance to change, but I liked it.” One benefit, May thought, was that with a number like 85, he’d always be able to get it no matter what team he joined. Then he got to St. Louis. “I was like, I’ll take 85, and (the equipment manager was) like, ‘Uh, it’s retired,'” May said. “I was, like, ‘OK, I won’t take 85.’ There weren’t many options available, and (3) was the one that I liked the best.” Nobody in Cardinals history has ever worn No. 85, but the team retired it in 1984 to honor longtime owner August A. “Gussie” Busch, who was 85 years old at the time. When Carter Jensen visited Kauffman Stadium growing up, he would spend the early innings in the outfield plaza. It’s a wonderland for kids, with a carousel, a playground, mini-golf, pop-a-shot, batting cages, a pitcher’s mound and a small turf field for launching Wiffle balls. “We would go out to the Little K behind left field, hit in the batting cages, do all that fun stuff,” Jensen said. “And then, when, like, the fifth inning rolled around, we’d go to the seats and watch the end of the game.” Jensen, 22, saw a lot of winning in the mid-2010s, when his Kansas City Royals won back-to-back pennants and took the crown in 2015. He went on to star at Park Hill High School in Kansas City, and hit .300 in 20 games last September. Now, Jensen is playing every day for the Royals, splitting time with a childhood favorite, Salvador Perez, at designated hitter and catcher. Jensen, who is part of a deep rookie class in the majors this season, spoke recently about what it’s like to play for the hometown team. An inspiring example: “I had always loved baseball and always wanted to play for the Royals growing up, and of course seeing all the World Series stuff, I wanted to be in that position. I remember the parade and everything like that, seeing guys like Salvy, Hosmer, Moose during the parade. That’s definitely motivation. That’s what I want to do, so that’s the goal from here on out.” A view from above: “I went to Game 6 of the World Series in 2014. Yordano (Ventura) pitched. That was amazing. We sat up at the very top, but it was awesome.” LSU or the Royals: “I was expecting to go a little bit earlier, so once the third round of the draft came around, I was like, ‘All right, I’m probably going to LSU.’ I think it was just because it was the Royals that me and my family were OK with going. Just because we knew the organization, and my mom knew that the Royals would take care of me. I think if it was any other team other than the Royals I would have ended up at LSU.” He scouted them, too: “I played with the Royals’ scout team growing up, so I’ve kind of been around some of the coaches. I was around (former GM) Dayton Moore a lot of the time, (VP of player personnel) Lonnie Goldberg was always around, and obviously the area scout who signed me, Matt Price, he was always around. So just being around the organization, you got to know some people well.” Perez went from favorite to friend: “At my first big-league spring training, I was kind of starstruck a little bit. But after that I just kind of viewed him as a friend, a teammate. And then last year was amazing, getting called up and working alongside him. Obviously, I know that he’s one of my favorite players growing up, but at the same time I know that we’re teammates now and we’re chasing the same goal. He’s been great, super helpful. I had a picture with him when I was, I think, 13. I showed it to him and he said I was making him feel old. I need to print it out and have him sign it.” Here’s one of the most mind-bending statistics in recent years: Bo Bichette had more bWAR for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2021 (5.9) than his father, Dante, had in his 14-year career (5.7). Bo, now with the New York Mets, had 29 homers and 25 steals in that 2021 season. His father posted higher totals in his best power/speed season, but the bWAR formula shrugged. At various points with the Colorado Rockies in the 1990s, Dante Bichette led his league in hits, home runs, runs batted in, slugging percentage and total bases. He also had 31 stolen bases (to go with 31 homers) in 1996, which qualified him for the middle-right square in last Saturday’s Grid. Though he hit .299 for his career, Dante Bichette’s bWAR suffers from low marks on defense and the high-scoring environment of his home park and his era. Still, his 30-30 season registered only 0.7 bWAR, the fewest for any of the 79 such seasons in major-league history. On Tuesday, MLB launched a new YouTube channel called MLB Clubhouse, with the goal of introducing baseball and softball to children through kid-friendly programs. It seems like a great idea, with tips from the pros, stories of players’ journeys, a stop-motion series, and even a show encouraging kids to explore creativity through art and baseball. All of that sounds terrific. If you grew up in the early ’80s, though, you’ll notice a glaring omission: Kool-Aid Man helping youngsters learn the finer points of the game. I mean, who better to teach the changeup, the fastball and holding on runners than a mascot for a flavored drink mix? He is a pitcher, after all. From 1980 to 1985, Major League Baseball Productions gave us “The Baseball Bunch,” with host Johnny Bench, on Saturday mornings. Bench played 17 seasons in his Hall of Fame career for the Cincinnati Reds, but as these bloopers show, wrangling the Kool-Aid Man was his greatest challenge. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Tyler Kepner is a Senior Writer for The Athletic covering MLB. He previously worked for The New York Times, covering the Mets (2000-2001) and Yankees (2002-2009) and serving as national baseball columnist from 2010 to 2023. A Vanderbilt University graduate, he has covered the Angels for the Riverside (Calif.) Press-Enterprise and Mariners for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and began his career with a homemade baseball magazine in his native Philadelphia in the early 1990s. Tyler is the author of the best-selling “K: A History of Baseball In Ten Pitches” (2019) and “The Grandest Stage: A History of The World Series” (2022). Follow Tyler on Twitter @TylerKepner