PHOENIX – Manager Torey Lovullo walked toward Eduardo Rodriguez in the dugout after he completed the top of the eighth inning Sunday afternoon and extended his hand. Rodriguez didn’t shake it back. He wanted the ball.
Rodriguez pitched into the ninth inning for the first time in his 11-year Major League career, steering the D-backs to a 5-1 victory over the Mets on Mother’s Day at Chase Field. It marks the club’s first back-to-back victories since a four-game winning streak from April 14-18.
The 33-year-old spun 8 1/3 dominant frames, not allowing a hit until the sixth inning. He scattered four knocks – none of which registered as hard-hit (95-plus mph) per Statcast – and walked three, but allowed just one run. His outing marks the sixth consecutive game in which a D-backs starter has gone at least six innings, the longest current streak in the Majors.
“You see a guy on the mound that doesn't give you a lot of emotion,” bench coach Jeff Banister said of Rodriguez pregame. “But under the hood, this guy is competing as much as anybody that we've got on the field.”
The southpaw breezed through the front five frames, throwing just 46 pitches, the fewest in a start for a D-backs hurler with that many innings since Barry Enright on Sept. 1, 2010. He didn’t allow a hit until the sixth when right fielder Carson Benge flared a 75.4 mph knock to center.
Through eight starts, Rodriguez has worked to the tune of a 2.25 ERA. Arizona has won each of his past six outings, a streak that began when the southpaw topped the very same Mets club at Citi Field on April 9.
His “hot knife through butter” beginning to 2026 largely began when he helped lead Venezuela to a World Baseball Classic title back in March.
“I think there's some ingredients to that for him where he had to go emotionally and mentally get ramped up for that,” Banister said. “You could tell that there was a different attitude and he was in a different space when he got back. I think that confidence of going through something like that and being part of it has allowed him to carry that forth.”