Boston Red Sox young starter Eduardo Rodriguez will be pitching a simulated game and is expected to return in May. Can the Red Sox wait out April without him?

Ian Browne of MLB.com reports that Rodriguez “will throw his third and likely final round of live batting practice on Wednesday, and then advance to pitching in a simulated game on Sunday in Fort Myers, Fla.” Browne further stated, “the Red Sox would probably want Rodriguez to pitch in six game settings (including Sunday) before activating him. Under that timetable, and if there are no setbacks, he could likely return to the Red Sox by the second week in May.”

That stretch may seem like a blip or an eternity, depending on how the Red Sox starting rotation pitches without him.

In 2015, Rodriguez went 10-6 with a 3.85 ERA in his rookie season, after being called up to replace the injured Clay Buchholz. Rodriguez was being asked to fill in for arguably the ace of the team, and he came out with a full house of pitches. He pitched 7.2 innings of three-hit ball, striking out seven Texas Rangers sluggers to earn his first victory in his very first appearance of the year.

Rodriguez had his arsenal of pitches clocked at a solid rate. His four-seam fastball just a touch under 94 mph, according to FanGraphs.com, was used 70% of the time, but his two-seamer is almost as fast. He also has a pretty good slider and changeup to mix things up for the hitters. However, BrooksBaseball.net reports that Rodriguez will need to change something about his delivery, especially when throwing his slider, as batters started catching up to them for higher opposing batting averages as he moved along in the season.

That’s nothing new for most new pitchers, who need to adjust to batters who have had scouts teach them how to adjust to the pitches. Yet, there were reports that Rodriguez was tipping off his pitches to batters by accident. Supposedly, that action has been corrected, but we won’t find out until May.

Judging by the way that David Price took care of business against the Cleveland Indians yesterday, Rodriguez will not need to come back to replace another Red Sox ace. The rest of the rotation may be a different story.

Other than Price, the rotation is about the same as it was when Rodriguez joined them in 2015, except for the Wade Miley departure. As much as the Red Sox were scoring runs, the pitching staff was bleeding runs to the opposition, enough to keep them in the American League East division basement.

If the Red Sox don’t want to rush Rodriguez back from his knee injury, the rest of the starters will need to step up their games a la Price. The bare minimum would be for them to last six innings without digging too big of a hole, so that the bullpen can protect them long enough for the offense to kick in gear. With Koji Uehara taking over the eighth inning and Craig Kimbrel dominating in the ninth inning, six or seven innings of close baseball is all that the team requires of their starters. Is that possible? We will find out soon enough.