For the second week in a row, the Yankees are turning to Carlos Rodón with their season on the line.
Assigned as the Yankees’ starting pitcher for Tuesday night’s critical ALDS Game 3 in the Bronx, Rodón faces the challenge of halting a scorching hot Toronto Blue Jays lineup that tallied 23 runs over the first two matchups.
The Yankees have “a ton” of confidence Rodón will meet the moment, manager Aaron Boone said.
“He’s been one of our mainstays this year,” Boone stated Monday at Yankee Stadium. “He’s had an excellent season, and whenever he gets the ball, we feel heavily favored to win. That will hold true [in Game 3]. He’ll be primed and ready.”
The Yankees have already leaned on Rodón previously to prevent elimination during the Wild Card series. After dropping Game 1, Rodón held the Boston Red Sox to three runs over more than 6 innings, earning a no-decision in Game 2.
The Yankees went on to win that game — and the best-of-three series.
This time, the challenge is even greater. Trailing 0-2 in the best-of-five ALDS, the Yankees must defeat Toronto in three consecutive games to move forward.
That begins with Rodón, who went 18-9 with a 3.09 ERA and 203 strikeouts in 195.1 innings over 33 starts in the regular season.
Two of Rodón’s starts this year were against the Blue Jays, resulting in a 0-1 record and a 3.60 ERA. The lefty gave up six runs (four earned) over 10 innings with eight walks and eight strikeouts.
Rodón did not allow a home run to the Blue Jays, a notable feat considering Toronto hit eight in the first two games of the ALDS.
“They’re not easy to strike out. They pressure defenses by putting the ball in play,” Rodón observed. “They make opposing defenses work. They’ve got athleticism paired with power, which makes them challenging.”
The key, Rodón said, is to force weak contact from the Blue Jays, who have totaled only seven strikeouts in the series thus far.
“There’s times where you need a strikeout, and just the [swing and] miss isn’t there,” Rodón said. “They seem to have a really good understanding of the zone as well, so the chase is low, and there’s not much miss. They have a good idea of what they want to do at the plate.”
Rodón might not have much margin for error. The Blue Jays are set to counter with right-hander Shane Bieber, who won the 2020 AL Cy Young Award with Cleveland.
Bieber, whom the Blue Jays acquired from the Guardians in a midseason trade, returned from his Tommy John surgery rehab in August and went 4-2 with a 3.57 ERA over seven starts.
The Yankees did not face Bieber after his trade to Toronto.
Rodón, meanwhile, boasts success against several of the Blue Jays’ biggest bats, including George Springer, who is 5-for-26 (.192) with two home runs against the lefty in his career.
But Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has won the majority of his meetings with Rodón, going 10-for-17 with a homer and three doubles.
“He’s an excellent pitcher, excellent human being, a guy that goes out there and gives all he has, goes out there and competes,” Guerrero, who is 6-for-9 with two homers in the ALDS, said of Rodón. “But we’ve just got to do the same thing: Go out there and compete.”
Rodón has stepped up for the Yankees all season, his third since signing a six-year, $162 million contract. After the Yankees lost ace Gerrit Cole to season-ending elbow surgery, Rodón delivered an All-Star campaign and formed a one-two punch atop the rotation with Max Fried.
The Blue Jays tagged Fried for seven runs in 3+ innings in their 13-7 win in Game 2 on Sunday in Toronto. But the Yankees have expressed confidence that they’ll do better as the series shifts to the Bronx, where Rodón pitched a 2.98 ERA this year.
“Every time he’s on the mound, [I have] full confidence in him,” outfielder Cody Bellinger said. “I just love who he is as a competitor.”
