Three Up, Three Down: Eduardo Rodriguez keeps outperforming every projection and expectation

Eduardo Rodriguez is no stranger to success on the mound. He's in his 12th season and once signed an $80 million contract; he's been here before. But after consecutive seasons with an ERA north of 5.00 as he heads into his mid-30s, I think it's fair to say nobody saw this kind of season coming from him. And frankly, I still can't believe it's actually happening. How unlikely is Rodriguez's success this season? Well, here are some numbers for you: Among 26 SP with a 3.50 ERA or better, he is:18th in walk rate25th in strikeout rate26th in xERA24th in FIPRodriguez lowered his ERA to 2.48 with eight shutout innings against the Pirates Wednesday. The Pirates, of course, are the third-best offense in baseball by wOBA this season, so that makes perfect sense, especially when he struck out just two hitters. Obviously. Whenever a stretch like this happens, there is a natural inclination to find an explanation for why a pitcher is outperforming his peripherals by such a huge margin. The Diamondbacks defense is surely helping a lot, but that doesn't explain it — as a staff they are outperforming their FIP by 0.21 runs total, only the eighth-biggest gap in baseball and much smaller than Rodriguez's gap. Rodriguez might get something extra these stats can't account for by being a lefty — there is some evidence lefties outperform their peripherals consistently enough for it to be real — but that doesn't even come close to explaining what we're seeing here. So, what does? Well, at the risk of stating the obvious, he's pitching well, locating his pitches in the right spots often enough to limit damage on contact. That being said, you would expect that to show up in a stat like xERA, which accounts for the quality of contact a pitcher allows, and he entered Wednesday's start with a 4.99 xERA, the worst of his ERA estimators. So, I don't find that to be a satisfactory explanation.I think the best explanation is … stuff happens. That is a deeply unsatisfying answer, but think about it this way: If outperforming your peripherals by the extent Rodriguez currently is, say, a 99th percentile outcome, you would still expect a few pitchers every season to do it when there are hundreds of starting pitchers around baseball. That doesn't mean you should expect any specific pitcher — including Rodriguez — to do it moving forward. But you should expect someone to do it. This will fall apart for Rodriguez at some point, but if you want to keep playing the "hot hand" until it does, that's fine. But once the bottom falls out, you'd better be prepared to drop Rodriguez immediately. Because this is wholly unsustainable. Pre-game Lineup CardHere's what you might have missed from CBSSports.com's MLB coverage in recent days: Prospects Report. Kade Anderson is back from a brief break, and he has to be on the verge of the majors, right? Trade deadline preview. Scott White looks at 31 players whose Fantasy value could change at the deadline. Deadline matchmaker. Mike Axisa finds the 10 deals that make the most sense at the deadline.Hitting the WireThe top waiver-wire targets from Wednesday's action: Christian Scott, SP, Mets (56%) – Scott finally finished six innings for the first time Wednesday, as he took a tough-luck loss to the Braves. He gave up just one run on five hits and a walk while striking out seven, and he got up to 98 pitches – an impressive performance for a guy who has been handled with kid's gloves for much of this season. Which could be a sign that the Mets are about to unleash him, and with a potential two-start where he'll face the Guardians and possibly the Pirates next week, this could be the best time to add him. But there is one wrinkle here: Scott is up to 83 pitches on the season, just 6.2 short of his career high, set back in 2024. He didn't throw at all in 2025, so there are probably some limitations coming up. What they will look like remains to be seen, but unfortunately, I suspect Scott will just be a short-term add.Brandyn Garcia, RP, Diamondbacks (3%) – The Diamondbacks are officially pulling Paul Sewald out of the closer role, and when the first opportunity for a save came up Wednesday, it was Garcia who got the call. Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo did mention several pitchers who will feature in the ninth, but Garcia might be the most interesting of the bunch — he has a 2.17 ERA in 29 innings this season, and while he wasn't nearly that good in previous stints in the majors, the underlying numbers do back it up in this case. He has a 1.84 xERA with a 31% strikeout rate and 6% walk rate, and those are certainly closer-caliber numbers. It's a small sample size we're dealing with and there's no guarantee Garcia will remain in the role, but he got the first shot and might be good enough to keep the job, so he's who I am prioritizing. Heriberto Hernandez, OF, Marlins (27%) — I've written about Hernandez a lot lately, because nobody seems to be taking him seriously. Well, he homered yet again Wednesday, and he's now up to 26 in 573 career MLB plate appearances — not quite a full season, and he's added eight steals on top of that, too. And the underlying data backs it up, as he has a .338 wOBA on the season but a .352 expected wOBA to go along with it. There is some swing-and-miss in Hernandez's game that will inject some skepticism into the projections for him, but that's not really a question worth asking when he's still this widely available. We can worry about whether it's sustainable when he's rostered in more than half of Fantasy leagues. Until then, Hernandez should just be rostered in all five-outfielder leagues, I think. RotoAJ Smith-Shawver, SP, Braves (36%) – Smith-Shawver didn't blow the doors off the joint in his return from Tommy John surgery Wednesday, so you don't need to run out to add him. He pitched 4.1 innings while allowing two runs on four hits and a couple of walks. He struck out four, which isn't bad, but he also generated just two swinging strikes on 69 pitches, which leaves a lot to be desired. He's a work in progress, but one who sat 1.6 mph up from the last time we saw him, with a new look on his splitter and slider. He faded when he came out for the fifth inning and didn't show much ability to miss bats, so again, there's no need to rush out and add him. But Smith-Shawver is a former top prospect who is still, somehow, just 23 years old, so there's still plenty of room for him to make an impact at some point down the stretch. Smith-Shawver was sent back to Triple-A after the start as the Braves continue to shuffle through rotation options, but I suspect he'll be back before long. Jacob Lopez, SP, Athletics (7%) – This one is pretty speculative, because Lopez has been pretty disastrous this season. But he's a funky pitcher who, at his best, thrives on deception more than stuff, which might just leave him with a slimmer margin for error than most pitchers. But he's been a productive Fantasy option in the past – most notably when he had a 13-start stretch with a 2.17 ERA before an elbow issue last August – and he had a pretty impressive start Wednesday in Sacramento against the Red Sox. He struck out seven and led all pitchers with 18 swinging strikes on 97 pitches, while allowing one earned run in 5.1 innings of work. It's really the first good start from Lopez this season, so I definitely don't want to overreact. But given last year's success, I'm definitely interested to see what he can do, at least in deeper leagues. Three Up, Three DownThree big performances that have players trending up, and three that have the arrow pointing in the opposite direction. Three UpCam Schlittler added a new wrinkleThere isn't a lot of nuance to Schlittler's approach most days. He throws hard and he throws his hardest pitches almost exclusively – entering play Wednesday, he had thrown his three fastball variants a combined 90.9% of the time. But he's had that curveball in his back pocket all season, sporting a 38.5 % whiff rate if he ever needs it, and he decided to break it out Wednesday against the White Sox. And it was awesome. He threw it 19 times, more than the cutter or sinker, and got seven whiffs on eight pitches with it – absolutely ridiculous stuff. He was also throwing it 3 mph harder than he usually does with nearly the same movement profile, which is just an absolute nightmare for opposing hitters to have to deal with. I mean, think about it this way: You already know you have to gear up for 95-100 mph heaters that move in three different directions, and then all of a sudden he starts throwing a near-90 mph curveball a bunch? It's sick, is what it is, and it's a sign that Schlittler has ways to thrive even if hitters catch up to his approach. He's just about as good as anyone in baseball at this point. Mackenzie Gore still has the upsideThe good starts from Gore are almost harder to bear than the bad ones, because I don't want him to give me hope anymore. He's an undeniably talented pitcher who has never quite figured out how to harness his stuff, and his continued struggles with the Rangers this season have pretty much caused me to lose all hope. And then he does something like Wednesday's start, where he overcame an ugly first inning to strike out nine hitters over seven innings with zero walks … and I want to believe. He still has that arsenal full of swing-and-miss pitches, though notably he had just 10 whiffs on 95 pitches and his velocity was down across the board in this one. Gore probably isn't as bad as his 4.77 ERA makes him seem – his xERA is 3.98 – but it's going to take more than one good start to get me to buy back in. But if he strikes out nine in his next start? Well, I can only be so strong. Eric Lauer is rolling Pitching for the Dodgers must be nice. In the regular season, you're facing basically no pressure, because you've got the best supporting cast in baseball there to help pick you up, and that includes a top-five defense in baseball across multiple metrics. Lauer just has to go out there and not embarrass himself and he's got a pretty good chance of winning in any given start. And he's doing a lot better than just clearing that low bar, as he lowered his ERA to 2.96 in nine appearances after he tossed six shutout, one-hit innings against the Mariners Wednesday. Of course, it goes without saying that the supporting cast is doing much of the heavy lifting here, as he has just 30 strikeouts in 51.2 innings since joining the team, but hey, that's the beauty of pitching for this team. It won't last, and Lauer will be out of the rotation before long when everyone is healthy, but Lauer keeps getting it down. I don't think I would be able to bring myself to stream him against the Cubs next week, but you might be braver than me. Three DownJoe Ryan stumbled againHey, after tying an MLB record with six homers allowed in his previous outing, Ryan's start Wednesday wasn't so bad. But it wasn't good, as he got tagged for four runs on eight hits in six innings against the lowly Royals. His velocity looked fine with a few days of extra rest, and 11 whiffs on 93 pitches is fine, if not a standout number. But he still got hit really hard, giving up 11 batted balls of at least 95 mph average exit velocity in the outing. Given Ryan's history – which includes stretches seemingly every year where he just routinely gets crushed – I'm inclined to just write this off as a cold streak. But the thing about Ryan is he has a tendency to get really cold, and it's fair to wonder if your ratios are at risk for a two-start week next week. I'll be putting him out there, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about it. Trevor Rogers got hit hardTo a certain extent, all pitchers are random number generators, and the only difference is the range of possible outcomes at any given time. But it feels more true for Rogers than any pitcher in baseball sometimes, just because the difference between the good versions and bad versions are rarely easy to figure out. His velocity was down a little bit Wednesday, but he still had 14 swinging strikes on 94 pitches and had six strikeouts to zero walks in six innings, so it should have been a good start, right? Nope! The Tigers jumped on him for three runs in the third inning and four more in the fifth and sixth combined – three were unearned, but that still left him charged with four in six innings. And of course, that comes amid a stretch where he has a 2.21 ERA since June 1, so there wasn't much reason to see a stumble like this coming. It's just one bad start in this stretch, so you're probably still starting Rogers, but I wish I had a better sense of why he succeeds when he does and why he fails when he does. It just feels like a roller coaster in the dark sometimes. It's okay, you can drop Davis Martin Martin still has a very respectable 3.62 ERA, so I suppose from that perspective I can understand why he is still 86% rostered in CBS Fantasy leagues. But this ship has been sinking for an awfully long time now, and I think we're at the point where Martin is one of the most obviously over-rostered pitchers in Fantasy. He was tagged for four runs in six innings Wednesday and has a 5.96 ERA since the start of June with two quality starts in his past 10. Martin was legitimately very good early in the season, putting up a 2.00 ERA with a 2.34 FIP and 3.55 xERA through the end of May. But he's also a 29-year-old who had never been very good before this and didn't make any real changes to his arsenal to fuel that breakout, so it's easy enough to dismiss once it fell apart. And it has. It's time to drop him. Extra InningsSalvador Perez had to runThe beautiful thing about baseball is, on any given day you might see something you've never seen before. Technically, that didn't happen Wednesday, but we did see something incredibly rare from Perez, who hit his first triple since 2022 – and just his second in the past eight seasons. Perez is a very good, occasionally great, hitter, but he's never been especially fleet of foot even before the twilight stage of his career. We are clearly there with Perez, who is hitting .214/.263/.372 despite a recent hot streak. He's just a No. 2 catcher at this point, though one who still hits the ball hard enough consistently enough to think he could go on a run down the stretch. Just don't expect to see many more triples from him. News and notesNick Kurtz was hit on the left forearm in the first inning and left the game. He'll have testing done Thursday to determine the extent of the injury, but anytime you're dealing with a wrist injury, there's concern. The Rangers acquired Chase Silseth and Logan O'Hoppe from the Angels. Travis d'Arnaud was activated from the IL to replace O'HoppeByron Buxton was placed on the IL with a right hip impingement, the second time he has gone on the IL with that injury this season. I would expect more than just a minimum stay with this injury recurring, but that's just a guess. Shohei Ohtani is also dealing with a biceps issue that is limiting his pitching in addition to the lingering knee problems. The knee is the bigger concern, but Andrew Friedman told reporters he does still expect Ohtani to pitch this season. Vinnie Pasquantino was placed on the 10-day IL with right wrist soreness. I guess it's good that it isn't specifically a hand injury, seeing as he had surgery on that hand a few months ago, but it doesn't seem like good news. Oneil Cruz has been cleared for all baseball activities as he works his way back from a fractured hand. Curtis Mead won't have surgery and is expected to miss 6-8 weeks. He's likely out for the rest of the season, but this could leave open the possibility of a very late return. Maikel Garcia felt renewed hand pain during his first rehab appearance Tuesday and has been pulled off the assignment. He will undergo additional testing and would seem to be in line to miss additional time now. Edwin Diaz was activated from the 60-day IL. He came in for the save, giving up one run on a couple of doubles but closed it out. His velocity was up 1.2 mph, but he didn't miss a single bat and gave up four batted balls at 95 mph or harder, so we'll call him a work in progress. Bryce Miller's next start has been pushed back to Friday to give him some extra rest. He has been struggling lately and has seen his velocity dip, so hopefully the extra rest helps. Blake Snell struck out nine over four innings while throwing 60 pitches in a rehab start Wednesday at Low-A. I wonder if the dominance here makes them consider having his next start come in the majors? If not, it won't be more than one or two more. Vladimir Guerrero was not in the lineup Wednesday after leaving Tuesday's game with a hamstring injury, but he was available to pinch hit. Kyle Schwarber was not in the lineup Wednesday as he deals with a gastrointestinal issue. Jake Irvin will be activated from the IL to start Thursday against the Braves. Irvin has been out nearly two months with a shoulder strain. Trevor Williams was activated off the IL for the Nationals after recovering from Internal Brace surgery.The Padres promoted Ethan Salas to Triple-A. He hit .285/.359/.418 with seven homers and 14 steals in 71 games at Double-A. Think we see him before the season? Kyle Karros has missed the past two games with biceps inflammation. Jake Bauers was back in the lineup Wednesday. He will try to keep playing through a fractured right big toe.