Wilfredo Rodriguez

Wilfredo Rodriguez was a relief pitcher in two games with the 2001 Houston Astros.

Wilfredo José Rodriguez was born March 20, 1979, in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela, and attended Bolivar High School. A left-handed pitcher, he signed with the Astros organization at age 16 for a $17,500 bonus and made his professional debut in 1979 at 18, with the Astros’ Rookie Class Gulf Coast League team. He had an 8-2 record and 3.04 ERA in 68 innings in 12 starts, striking out 71 and walking 32.

For 1998 Wilfredo was moved up to the Quad Cities River Bandits of the Class A Midwest League. He was 11-5 with a 3.05 ERA, and struck out 170 in 165 innings. 1999 found him with the Kissimmee Cobras of the Florida State League, Class Advanced A. He went 15-7 with a 2.88 ERA in 153 1/3 innings, leading the league in wins and in strikeouts with 148. After the season the Astros moved him to the major league roster to protect him from the draft.

In February 2000 Wilfredo signed a one-year major league contract and went to spring training with Houston. Baseball America named him the Astros’ top prospect. In mid-March he was sent to the minor league camp, and he started the season back with Kissimmee. Mid-season he was moved up to the Round Rock Express of the AA Texas League, but it seems like he may have begun to have arm issues—he pitched only 110 innings in 20 starts between the two teams, and had a 5.29 ERA. He struck out 107, but walked 82.

Wilfredo signed another Houston contract for 2001; Baseball America named him the Astros’ number three prospect despite the off-year. Again he was sent to the minor league camp during spring training, and he returned to Round Rock. For the first time he was used mainly in relief, starting ten of his 42 appearances, striking out 94 and walking 56 in 92 1/3 innings with a 4.78 ERA. When the Texas League season ended he was called up to Houston.

Wilfredo made his major league debut on September 21, at home against the Cubs. He relieved Nelson Cruz (the other Nelson Cruz) with nobody out in the top of the 7^th, with three runs in and Fred McGriff on second, and a 7-3 Cubs lead. He got Rondell White to fly out, allowed a triple to Michael Tucker and a sacrifice fly to Bill Mueller, then struck out Robert Machado. He gave up a three-run homer to McGriff in the 8^th but stayed in the game until he was pinch-hit for by Daryle Ward in the bottom of the inning. The Astros lost 12-3.

Wilfredo didn’t get into another game until October 4, the final game of a home series against the Giants. He came in to pitch the 9^th with the Astros down 9-2; the first batter was Barry Bonds, who hit his 70^th home run of the season, tying Mark McGwire’s record. Wilfredo then retired the side, around a double by Andres Galarraga. From the next day’s San Francisco Chronicle:

Astros’ reliever takes on challenge

HOUSTON—Wilfredo Rodriguez started the season in Double-A and ended up in the history book.

Less than two weeks after his major league debut, Rodriguez challenged Barry Bonds with a fastball in the ninth inning Thursday night and Bonds hit his record-tying homer.

“I feel OK,” Rodriguez said. “I am happy for him. He deserves what he got with the 70^th home run. I threw him fastballs. That’s what I do. I was confident with it. I was trying to get him out.”

While most Astros pitchers avoided giving Bonds anything to hit, Bonds finally got a chance to match Mark McGwire’s mark in his final at-bat of San Francisco’s 10-2 win, which completed a three-game sweep.

“The game was out of hand,” Astros manager Larry Dierker said. “He would not have pitched in that situation if we had a chance to win. We figured he might be just wild enough to throw one down the middle and he would hit it out.

“Maybe he’d throw outside and walk him.”

In his major-league debut Sept. 21, Rodriguez allowed four hits and four runs in two innings in a 12-4 loss to the Chicago Cubs.

Rodriguez wasn’t sure he’d get into the game but ran to the mound in the ninth inning and Bonds was his first batter.

“It was already 9-2 when Bonds came up to bat,” Astros catcher Tony Eusebio said. “There wasn’t much time to talk to him. You don’t get any baby sitters up here. You just have to go out and do your job the best you can.”

Rodriguez didn’t hesitate. Bonds swung and missed at a 95-mph fastball and allowed another fastball to pass up and in before the home run.

“It was 9-2 and I was trying to get him out,” Rodriguez said. “I wasn’t trying to pitch around him. I was just trying to get him out.”

Rodriguez was 5-9 with a 4.78 ERA in 42 appearances with the Double-A Round Rock Express this season.

When Bonds was asked if he had heard of the 22-year-old left-hander before the home run, he said: “Not at all. He throws hard. No doubt about that.”

From a November 4 AP story:

A month later, Wilfredo Rodriguez has no regrets.

The 22-year-old Venezuelan, two weeks into his major league career with the Houston Astros, gave up Barry Bonds’ record-tying 70^th home run.

He is not ashamed of the pitch—a 90 mph fastball right over the plate.

“He was confident, the score was 9-2 in the ninth,” Rodriguez said. “I tried with the utmost professionalism to do my job and he did his.”

Rodriguez is proud that Bonds mentioned him in the same breath as Randy Johnson.

“I’ll never forget Bonds saying that with the exception of Randy Johnson, he’d never seen a left-hander pitch as hard as me,” Rodriguez said. “That gives me every reason to push ahead.”

The left-hander probably will start next season in the minors but is a highly regarded prospect for the Astros.

“I’m confident that I’ll return to the top soon,” he said. “The truth is that I feel better that Bonds hit three other home runs. The weight of being the victim of the record is off my shoulders.”

In 2002 Wilfredo signed another Houston contract, went to spring training, and in March was assigned to the minor league camp. By the time the regular season started he was on the disabled list; he underwent surgery to have bone chips removed from his left elbow. In June, still on the DL, he started working out with the New Orleans Zephyrs, the Astros’ AAA affiliate in the Pacific Coast League. In mid-July, apparently not impressed with his progress, the Astros dropped him from the 40-man major league roster to make room for another player. Any other team could have claimed him on waivers, but they all passed, making him a free agent. At this point the Astros tried to re-sign him, but he chose the Cubs, who sent him to extended spring training at their facility in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The Cubs released Wilfredo in October, without his getting into any actual games. In 2003 he signed with the Expos, but didn’t get into any games that year either. In 2004 he pitched for three different Expos’ farm clubs: between the three he had a 10.29 ERA in 15 games, six of them starts; in 42 innings he allowed 62 hits, struck out 31 and walked 37. He was released, then pitched one game for the Winnipeg Goldeyes of the independent Northern League.

In 2005 Wilfredo was invited to spring training by the Texas Rangers after signing a minor-league contract. From the Abilene Reporter News, February 17:

The only pitchers considered absent by Showalter and not expected in Arizona for the opening workout were right-hander Rosman Garcia and left-hander Wilfredo Rodriguez. The non-roster invitees from Venezuela were having problems with their visas that could keep them away several more days.

Wilfredo made it there, then was sent to the minor league camp on March 19. He wound up with the Frisco RoughRiders of the Texas League, where he made the all-star team despite making just 12 starts; he had a 3.80 ERA with 64 strikeouts in 68 2/3 innings. He was also sent briefly to the Oklahoma RedHawks of the Pacific Coast League, for whom he made two starts and had a 1.42 ERA.

Still, the Rangers released him after the season. While playing winter baseball in Venezuela he was spotted by a Milwaukee scout and got an invitation to the Brewers’ 2006 spring training. Yet again he was reassigned to the minor league camp, and then he was released. He made three appearances for the San Angelo Colts of the independent United League, and that apparently closed his pro career. From the San Francisco Chronicle of May 15, 2007:

A bold name on Bonds’ list just fades away

By Henry Schulman

Chronicle Staff Writer

HOUSTON—The dates on the pitcher’s biography are as stark as they are sad.

Born: March 20, 1979.

Major-league debut: Sept. 21, 2001.

Final game: Oct. 4, 2001.

At 22, his baseball dream came true. Thirteen days later, it was over—although he hardly knew it then.

He is Wilfredo Rodriguez, whose name should evoke some recognition from Giants fans. In the third and final inning of his major-league career, the left-hander from Venezuela fired a 93-mph fastball toward Barry Bonds, who crushed it into the second deck at Minute Maid Park here for his 70^th home run of 2001, tying Mark McGwire’s single-season record.

Bonds, who hit 71 and 72 a night later in San Francisco, returns to Houston this evening to resume his quest for Henry Aaron’s all-time record.

Big things have happened for Bonds since 2001. He won four more National League Most Valuable Player awards. He signed a $90 million contract that winter and another $16 million deal after the 2006 season. He hit many milestone homers: 600, 660, 700 and 714, to name a few. He also became a scourge as the face of baseball’s steroids scandal.

But what of Rodriguez and that forceful young arm, which could propel a baseball at close to 100 mph? His fate was not as kind and a vivid reminder of one of the cruelest rules of the game, that getting to the big leagues is one thing, and staying there is something else.

After their historic meeting in 2001, Bonds got richer and Rodriguez fell off the map, a victim of elbow troubles that he spent five years trying to overcome. Apparently, he failed. Although Rodriguez could not be reached for comment, and his agents did not return phone calls, a receptionist for one of the agents, surprised to hear a reporter ask about the pitcher, said, “Oh, he’s retired and back in Venezuela.”

As recently as last year, Rodriguez tried to pitch in an independent league in Texas, but he left after three games because of arm trouble. Giants catcher Eliezer Alfonzo, who played with Rodriguez for the Caracas Lions in winter ball, said he heard Rodriguez needed “Tommy John” surgery, but that could not be confirmed.

True or not, it appears the pitcher who served up one of baseball’s most famous home runs is done at 28, merely a bold-faced name on a list of 438 pitchers whom Bonds has taken deep.

“It’s kind of sad to hear stuff like that about anybody, especially if he was a top prospect in the big leagues,” said Colorado catcher Yorvit Torrealba, another Venezuelan. “He’s so young, too, not to pitch or play anymore. I’m sure it’s hard on him.”

“Unfortunately,” Astros general manager Tim Purpura said, “it’s one of the things that happens in the game. Barry Bonds has hit home runs off the best pitchers in the game and obviously hit one off a barely known pitcher in the game. When you’re around that long and hit that many home runs, it’s going to be a wide swath of pitchers you will have faced.”

Purpura worked in the Astros’ front office when Rodriguez came through their Venezuelan academy as a teenager. They signed him for a $17,500 bonus, and he rose through their system with so much promise. A lefty who throws 97 mph? That’s Randy Johnson. That’s Billy Wagner.

“He was probably one of the best left-handed arms we had that had come through our system, maybe ever,” Purpura said. “He had a ‘plus’ fastball, very good curveball, good changeup. He was an impressive prospect.”

However…

“He had various elbow issues. He was one of those players who pitched through a lot of pain throughout his career. He had an elbow with a lot of wear and tear, arthritic changes, bone spurs, things you don’t typically see with a player at that point in his career. He had some pretty advanced degeneration in his elbow.”

After a recap of Wilfredo’s 2002 to 2005, the article continues:

Pitching in Venezuela the following winter, he caught the eye of a Milwaukee scout, and the Brewers invited him to big-league camp in 2006. But by mid-March, he was released.

“He was an injury risk. He definitely wasn’t the same,” Brewers general manager Doug Melvin said. “His velocity was 87 to 89. Beyond that, he wasn’t the same as he was before all the surgeries. You hope everyone who gave up a home run to Barry doesn’t fall like that. There’d be a shortage of pitchers.”

Rodriguez found refuge in the Texas indy league, in which players earn in the hundreds of dollars a week, not the tens of thousands. Harlan Bruha, the owner of the San Angelo Colts, pulled Rodriguez’s file last week and read his stats from last May: three games, two starts, six innings, ERA 12.00.

“He wasn’t right,” Bruha said. “He certainly wasn’t the Wilfredo Rodriguez who gave up Bonds’ 70^th home run.”

Rodriguez might have gone home to Venezuela for good, as his agent’s receptionist said, or he might be grasping for one more chance, however he gets it, to relive the adrenaline of those two major-league appearances in 2001.

Torrealba shook his head at the thought of Rodriguez back home. Torrealba was there that night in Houston, when the careers of Bonds and the 22-year-old pitcher intersected along their different paths.

“Obviously, we knew he was a top prospect,” Torrealba said. “He threw hard, 97, 98 mph. I know for a fact he had problems with his elbow, but I’m really shocked by the fact he retired for whatever reason. We knew what he was capable of doing.”

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