Cuban pitcher Andy Rodríguez continues to excel with the Rangers’ Double-A club, the Frisco RoughRiders and is approaching a promotion to the Big Show’s. This is something that may possibly come before the end of the season. At the moment he is having an excellent second season within the Texas Minor League system. Last year he finished the season with Frisco after pitching six games with the club.
This season he sports an excellent 1.96 earned run average(41.1 IP; 9 ER) in 24 outings and opponents hit only .165 against the hurler. The right-hander has also struck out 36 batters, walked 15 and less than one batter per inning gets on base (WHIP: 0.92) when Rodríguez is on the mound. Rivals only slash .250/.259/.509 against the Cuban flamethrower. He has only allowed two home runs all season.
Amongst Texas League pitchers with at least 40 innings pitched, he has the fifth best ERA and the third best WHIP. Equipped with a 97 Mph fastball and array of above-average breaking pitches that could help the team’s at anytime during the season. Sources very close to the team have privately confessed to me that this could be the season that he debuts with the big club.
The Havana native decided to defect in 2022 after seeing action with the Cuban National Team in the pre-olympic tournament in West Palm Beach, Fla. Rodríguez decided not to board a flight on June 8th of that season with a destination to Japan thereby ending his connection with the Cuban Federation thereby abandoning his contact with Japan’s SoftBank Hawks and causing the team place him on the restricted list.
Rodríguez signed with Texas in 2023 after being taken off the list by the Nippon squad and has progressed through the organization quickly. In his brief time in the minors with Softbank’s Japanese Western League team the Cuban had a record of 1-0, 2.25 earned run average and four strikeouts. With the way Rodríguez has performed this season do not be surprised to see him grace the mound sometime this season in Arlington.