Francisco Rodriguez arrested for domestic violence

By now if you haven’t heard, one of our relievers, Francisco Rodriguez, was arrested in September on charges for domestic violence. I’m not going to get into the specific details of who was abused and why, but I think the entire issue of K-Rod is something that we all need to talk about. He’s a mental case. This isn’t his first offense for violence as he was cited back in 2010 for the same thing. He’s had arguments with teammates, managers, probably even the hot dog vendors, but the fact is that K-Rod is trouble no matter where he goes. You think he’d be able to turn that negative energy into positive by being a dominant reliever, but he missed the mark in 2012. Fortunately for the Milwaukee Brewers, next year they won’t have to deal with the menace that is K-Rod. 

Francisco Rodriguez causes trouble no matter where he goes. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-US PRESSWIRE

Throughout the season with John Axford‘s struggles and just the constantly imploding bullpen, Rodriguez was seen as an alternative to everything. He had prior closing experience and some of us figured, well hey, why not try him out? Boy, that was a mistake. Not only could K-Rod not handle closing, he just couldn’t handle anything. His personal struggles with anger intermixed with his pitching woes were not a good combination.

It’s evident that the Brewers’ re-signing of him for the 2012 season was thought to be something else, productive. Fortunately he’ll be a free agent once the postseason ends and we’ll never have to deal with him again unless Doug Melvin is just as sane as K-Rod himself. If you want to take a quick glance at stats from this season, he had a staggering 4.38 ERA, a 1.333 WHIP, seven blown saves and yeah, you pretty much get the point.

I’m not trying to go on a rant here and knock K-Rod’s character, but he just needs to pull his act together. Countless arguments, two (or maybe even more that we don’t know about) domestic violence disputes and the inability to command and control his stuff on the mound spells a huge recipe for disaster. He’s been a menace for batters in previous years and is six saves shy of 300. However, what we saw in Milwaukee was a pitcher who gave us only a little bit of what was advertised when we got him in that trade in 2011.

I’m sure Rodriguez isn’t the only piece in the bullpen that is going to be gone, but he’s a huge part. I admit I called for him to start closing games when Axford had his struggles, but now I realize how wrong I was. Rodriguez is only 30 so he has time enough to establish himself as a great closer once again, but on another team. What he did in Milwaukee though may put a damper on his parade.