Applauding the Season That Was: Randy Rodriguez’s Breakout

In the early weeks of the season, it was safe to say Rodriguez was exceeding expectations as he looked absolutely unhittable. He didn’t allow an earned run until his 12th inning of the year and was striking out 12.3 hitters per nine up until then.

It didn’t end there, either. After giving up two earned runs in that 12th inning of the year, the breakout reliever went on an absurd run of dominance.

This run cemented Rodriguez as the best reliever in baseball up to this point and put his name on the map. He became the first Giants pitcher ever to strike out 20 batters and allow no earned runs in a calendar month, per Alex Pavlovic. Fans all over the country were learning of the Giants’ reliever and cases for his first All-Star appearance were being made left and right.

As a matter of fact, our own Jack McMullen was an early supporter of Rodriguez making the midsummer classic. He had this to say on an episode of the podcast on June 18th.

“If Randy Rodriguez is not an All-Star in the National League, we riot.”

-Jack McMullen, The Just Baseball Show

It ended up coming to fruition as Rodriguez was one of the relievers sent to the game from the National League. The only reason it was surprising was due to the fact that he was not a closer, and All-Star relievers are typically closers.

Rodriguez went into the All-Star break with a miniscule 0.86 ERA, the best in baseball, with 55 strikeouts in 41.2 innings. The fastball jumped from that -2.2 runs above average in 2024 to a positive 7.3 in 2025. Adding to this, of all relievers who have thrown at least 50 innings this season, it is tied for the second best in terms of Stuff+ at 122.

This capped off one of the most impressive runs we’ve seen from a reliever in recent memory. Rodriguez cemented himself as one of the elite bullpen arms in baseball that every fan wish they had on their team. For a reliever who had struggled in his rookie season, he flipped the script in a single offseason.

Unfortunate News

Interestingly, after the All-Star break, Rodriguez looked like a completely different person. He had a 6.00 ERA and while he was still striking out the world, he was now walking three guys per nine innings again. Something was clearly off.

Initially, Rodriguez wasn’t throwing in situations he normally would which we found out was due to arm soreness. However, the news that quickly followed was the worst case scenario for the 26-year-old.

While he took a few days to officially decide, Rodriguez is now set to have the surgery later this month. What was looking like just the beginning of an elite reliever’s career, has now taken a turn.

Now, Giants fans won’t see the head of their bullpen until 2027 and it will force Buster Posey to rebuild the entire group heading into next season. While it’s easy to focus on the negatives of the situation, we can’t forget how good Rodriguez was in 2025’s entirety.

He finishes the year with a 1.78 ERA, 11.90 K/9, 1.4 fWAR, and 67 strikeouts in 50.2 innings thrown.

While it may be a while, the Giants now have a piece in their bullpen that looks like a real building block. Once he returns, Randy Rodriguez will slide right back into this bullpen in order to continue this level of dominance and, hopefully, be even better.