For the second week in a row, the Yankees are turning to Carlos Rodón with their season on the line.
As the Yankees’ starter for Tuesday night’s win-or-go-home ALDS Game 3 in the Bronx, Rodón is tasked with cooling off a torrid Toronto Blue Jays lineup that erupted for 23 runs over the first two games.
The Yankees have “a ton” of confidence Rodón will meet the moment, manager Aaron Boone said.
“He’s been obviously one of our horses this year,” Boone said Monday at Yankee Stadium. “He’s had a great year, and any time we give him the ball, we feel like we have an excellent chance to win. That will be the same [in Game 3]. He’ll be ready to roll.”
The Yankees already relied on Rodón to stave off elimination in the Wild Card round. After the Yankees lost Game 1, Rodón limited the Boston Red Sox to three runs over 6+ innings and took a no-decision in Game 2.
The Yankees went on to win that game — and the best-of-three series.
However, the task is taller this time. Down 0-2 in the best-of-five ALDS, the Yankees will need to beat Toronto three games in a row in order to advance.
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 those starts came against the Blue Jays, and Rodón went 0-1 with a 3.60 ERA in those outings. The left-hander allowed six runs (four earned) over 10 innings and issued eight walks and against 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 tough to strike out. They force action. They put the ball in play,” Rodón said. “They make teams play defense. They’re pretty athletic. There’s also slug within the lineup, and it makes it tough.”
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.”
