DETROIT — We’re all thinking the same thing: When will Eduardo Rodriguez achieve the promise that the Red Sox and all of baseball had for him as a prospect in the Orioles’ organization?

You’ve heard it a thousand times. It takes time for many prospects to reach that moment when they gain consistency, where they can repeat their deliveries enough to consistently perform into the seventh inning and beyond.

It’s not that E-Rod hasn’t done it. He has.

I think Rodriguez, a 4-1 loser to the Tigers on Saturday afternoon at Comerica Park, is going to be very good once it all clicks. In fact, he should be a top-echelon guy. And if you ask talent evaluators about him, there’s no reason why Rodriguez can’t be thought of like David Price or Chris Sale.

The problem is the consistency just isn’t there yet. Saturday’s performance was a perfect example. He pitched a very strong game for four innings, allowing one run against a pretty tough Tigers lineup before his game went south in a hurry in the fifth. He allowed homers to Jose Iglesias (in the third) and James McCann (in the fifth).

Rodriguez admitted he left too many pitches over the plate in the fifth. He allowed a double to JaCoby Jones, a wild pitch, another double to Iglesias, and a run-scoring single to Ian Kinsler before getting out of the inning.

“I just thought today was a case of poorly located pitches,’’ pitching coach Carl Willis said. “On the pitch to Iglesias [the home run] he was trying to go in. Iglesias likes the ball in but it doesn’t mean you don’t go in, but when you do it’s not so much for a strike. You have to get it in far enough. With McCann’s homer as well, he didn’t get it where he wanted to and they made him pay for it.’’

Willis agrees, however that maturity is setting in.

“It is,’’ he said. “He came in today when we sat down for our pitcher-catcher meetings and he had done his homework. He had a plan. We made some adjustments, but those are things he’s continuing to learn and improve on. That being said, you have to go out and execute.’’

Willis thinks the upside is worth waiting for.

“Oh yeah. He has three-plus pitches and again, it’s a matter of minimizing mistakes and learning to control damage. You have to have patience with him and keep positive with him, yet keep on top of him. When you have a hiccup or bad inning, you have to continue to work and be able to dig in and evaluate why this was a bad pitch,’’ Willis said.

Even established pitchers have occasional meltdowns, but they stand out more for a kid who’s just not quite there yet. Rodriguez just turned 24 on Friday, so it’s not like he’s an old man whose upside is behind him. He’s already pitched in parts of three seasons in the majors and you would think he’s learned a little from every one of his 42 major league starts.

He had a superb spring training where he had put his knee cap issues behind him. His knee cap occasionally slips out of place, including this winter when he had to come out of a winter league game in Venezuela. The Red Sox training staff has helped him strengthen the area over the past few months to where Rodriguez feels more confident in his delivery.

E-Rod seems like a guy who really wants to get to that next level and prove he belongs. And he’ll get plenty of more chances during the course of the season because he’s not going anywhere. The Red Sox are going to ride the wave with him, good and bad, until it smooths out.

This is why this is such a big year for him. The apprenticeship has taken place and now this is supposed to be the year that he takes off.

A lot of very good pitchers have gone through this when they’re up to the majors at a young age.

Look no further than Rick Porcello, who was 20 years old when Dave Dombrowski summoned him to the Tigers.

Porcello had some up-and-down seasons early in his career. He showed flashes of finally getting to that point in 2014. And then in 2015 with the Red Sox he had probably the worst season of his career. He went from that to being the Cy Young Award winner in 2016.

Porcello went through that exhaustive stage where he was torn between being a four-seam pitcher and two-seam pitcher. Or maybe it was his pitching coaches who were torn. What he found was that at his core he was a sinkerball pitcher, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t throw a four-seamer as well.

And so Rodriguez will have to go through this evolution.

There was a reason he was traded for one of the elite relief pitchers in baseball in Andrew Miller. Sometimes it’s hard for a contending team to carry an inconsistent starter, but on a team that has Price, Porcello, Sale, Steven Wright, and Drew Pomeranz, you do it knowing the reward could huge.

Nick Cafardo can be reached at cafardo@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickcafardo.