NEW YORK — The night before the biggest start of his career so far, Carlos Rodón was a sea monster.
There was a new toy in the Rodón household: a tent-sized cloth submarine playhouse. Carlos’ wife, Ashley, had acquired the thing. Carlos had built it. A little kids’ dream. On this night, the two older Rodón kids, Willow (5) and Bo (3), insisted that dad play the role of sea monster. He joyfully obliged.
But Rodón didn’t unplug completely. He watched film and read over some scouting reports, though preparation did not consume his evening.
Later in the night, his kids long asleep, Rodón sat down at his desk to sketch out a few last-minute notes for the upcoming start. The game plan long decided, Rodón planned to bring the jottings to the yard on Monday as extra information. At the top of a blank sheet of paper, he scribbled out “KWAN”, the name of Cleveland’s dynamic leadoff hitter. But instead of writing down his assorted thoughts or a plan of attack, Rodón paused.
He crumbled up the paper and threw it away.
Less than 24 hours later, Rodón delivered a triumphant performance in New York’s 5-2 victory in Game 1 of the ALCS. He tallied a whopping 25 swing-and-misses, the most ever by a Yankees pitcher in a home playoff game. The southpaw cruised through six innings, striking out nine while allowing just one run.
Juan Soto ripped a solo shot in the third, his first home run this October. The Yankees capitalized on a waterfall of Guardians walks and wild pitches to score three more early runs. Cleveland made it closer late, clawing the game back to within three, but New York’s October breakout star, closer Luke Weaver, slammed the door with a five-out save.
The home crowd, which at one point featured Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, went home happy. The Yankees, favored in this ALCS on paper and in payroll, began the series with an encouraging, if less-than-dominant, win.
Rodón — more specifically, his dramatic start-to-start shift in demeanor — was the story of the night.
His outing was cast beneath the unavoidable shadow of his most recent start, a disastrous implosion in Game 2 of the ALDS against the Kansas City Royals. In his first postseason start as a Yankee, Rodón looked frantic, frazzled by the weight of it all. He surrendered four runs while recording just 11 outs.
He started superbly that night, striking out the side in an electrifying first inning, gesticulating wildly after each punchout, mirroring the unhinged energy pulsating from the Yankee Stadium crowd.
It was thrilling. It was also temporary.
When Salvador Pérez led off the fourth inning with a game-tying solo home run, Rodón came unmoored. His command and poise abandoned him. Five batters and three baserunners later, he was out of the game, planted firmly on the dugout bench. Rodón shook his head back-and-forth in a mixture of disappointment and disgust like the pendulum of a downtrodden grandfather clock.
In his first real taste of the grand stage, Rodón had failed, spectacularly — from untouchable to uncomfortable in an instant. The performance led to public musings about whether the hurler’s on-mound temperament was too volatile for him to pitch the biggest games for the sport’s biggest team. Signed in December 2022 for six years and $162 million, Rodón was brought in to start Game 2s, but he fumbled against Kansas City in his first opportunity.
This narrative dominated the buildup to his start in ALCS Game 1. In his pregame media conference, Rodón parried question after question — all of them warranted, given his previous outing — about how he planned to better control his emotions. He talked about keeping focus, about channeling his energy productively. He mentioned closely watching Gerrit Cole’s series-clinching gem in ALDS Game 4, paying particular attention to Cole’s icy look when he walked off the mound.
Whatever Rodón did between starts, the outcome was wildly different.
Five times on Monday, he finished an inning with a strikeout. Not once did the expressive hurler erupt like he did in the ALDS. He was workmanlike, assertive, under control. He was in command — of both the ballgame and his emotions. Rodón avoided peaks and valleys. The Guardians managed just three hits off him: a single in each of the first two frames and a solo home run from Brayan Rocchio in the sixth. Pitching with a lead certainly helped Rodón, who leaned on his fastball early and often.
Alex Cobb, whose career numbers against Soto would make a statue blush, coughed up the game’s first run on a solo shot from the swashbuckling slugger. After missing low and in with a pair sinkers, Cobb tried to get one under Soto’s hands. The pitch ran back over the heart of the plate, and Soto uncoiled, sending the poor baseball hurtling through a strong wind into the Yankees bullpen for a 1-0 lead.
Cobb unraveled from there, walking a trio of Yankees to load the bases. That marked the end of his evening, but rookie Joey Cantillo kept the wildness going. The lefty finished the frame but not before another walk and two run-scoring wild pitches. From there, New York’s offense threw it into cruise control, for the most part. A 439-foot sonic boom courtesy of Giancarlo Stanton in the seventh provided some cushion and a stadium full of dropped jaws. The Yankees withstood an eighth-inning Cleveland rally to give Rodón the first postseason win of his career.
For the sturdy lefty, it was an encouraging night, even if he opted to maintain an air of calm during his postgame media conference. Rodón knows the journey is far from over, his story as a Yankee far from written.
One spectacular showing cannot, on its own, silence the whispers — not in a town so demanding, with a memory so short. There will be more opportunities for glory or gloom. A stinker in his next start, be it in Game 5 or the World Series, would turn Rodón back from hero to villain in an instant. Such is life in the postseason pressure-cooker.
But Rodón’s commanding performance in Game 2 was a loud reminder why this team paid this man.
The sea monster is in there. He just needs to tame it.
