SARASOTA, Fla. — Grayson Rodriguez announced the pitch, so as not to surprise catcher Adley Rutschman behind the plate. “Sweeper,” he called out, then hurled the offering to Rutschman during their bullpen session Friday morning.

Then Rodriguez turned around, walked over to the pitching coaches gathered and watched on a monitor the result of that sweeper — low and outside, just above the dirt — in slow motion. They discussed, and then Rodriguez took the mound again. “Same thing,” he called to Rutschman.

Rodriguez is “tinkering,” as he says, with a new pitch this spring. The sweeper borrows characteristics from the slider he threw in 2023, but in 2025, if he likes how it operates this spring, Rodriguez will have a third breaking ball in his repertoire — the traditional curveball; the short, hard slider of 2024; and the sweeper, which boasts more horizontal break.

It’s in the early, experimentation phase. But, if Rodriguez feels comfortable with it at the end of spring, it could be another nasty pitch in an arsenal that already boasts some of the best off-speed run values in baseball, per Statcast.

And another pitch to trip up batters could be vital. Rodriguez is entering his third season in the majors, so hitters have an idea of what he tends to bring each start. And, without right-hander Corbin Burnes, Baltimore needs Rodriguez to make the next step — and potentially become an ace himself.

“We’re going to mess around with it, for sure,” Rodriguez said. “It’s something we’ve been kind of trying over the last couple weeks. Definitely kind of developing it right now. Obviously, we’ll throw it some this spring and see.”

In 2023, Rodriguez’s slider had similar characteristics to the new sweeper he’s employing. It was slower, at 82.3 mph on average, and as such it registers on Statcast as a sweeper with an average of 11 inches of horizontal movement.

Last year, though, the pitching development team felt a sharper, faster slider would play better with Rodriguez’s fastball that averages 96.1 mph.

When Rodriguez threw sliders last year, Statcast momentarily registered them as cutters. They hummed in at 86.5 mph on average, and they were tighter, with an average horizontal break of 5 inches.

“The slower it is, guys, if they recognize it, they can spit on it or don’t have to get on it as quick,” Rodriguez said last year, when explaining why he cut down on horizontal break in favor of velocity. “The 5 or 6 mph difference really makes guys have to rush, so hopefully generating a few more chases with it.”

But Rodriguez is now at a point where he feels comfortable adding another pitch to his mix — even if that pitch is something of a throwback to his slower slider from 2023.

The numbers worth looking at: In 2023, batters hit just .145 against Rodriguez’s slider/sweeper (Statcast called it a sweeper; Rodriguez called it a slider), and they whiffed against it on 34% of their swings. He struggled for the feel of it during last year’s spring training, which led to the harder slider and a whiff rate of 36.1%.

Now he could bring both varieties to the table, similar to how Burnes added a second curveball during last year’s camp.

“In ’23, I was throwing a little bit different of a slider — slower, bigger break,” Rodriguez said. “And then last year we wanted to throw something a little bit tighter and harder. We’re still going to keep that slider, and then try to add a sweeper in there as well to kind of go off the curveball and hard slider to give us something else.”

Rodriguez is entering a pivotal season. He’s only 25 and, although he has performed well, injuries have prevented him from becoming the workhorse starter who approaches 200 innings each year.

That’s what Burnes is, now for the Arizona Diamondbacks. In his lone season for the Orioles, Burnes posted a 2.92 ERA in 194 1/3 innings, and he spun a master class in the postseason despite a loss in Game 1 against the Kansas City Royals.

The Orioles did not sign or trade for a like-for-like replacement of Burnes (as if there are many of those out there), so there will be added responsibility on Rodriguez’s shoulders.

Rodriguez watched that dominance all year, and he marveled at how Burnes worked into the sixth inning or later in nearly every start. The efficiency of those outings stood out to Rodriguez as an area he’d like to improve.

And how might the sweeper help in that regard? Rodriguez is already thinking of working deep into games.

“Hopefully it’ll just give us another option to surprise some guys,” he said, “second and third time through the lineup.”