You always wanna blow ‘em out, but some days, that’s not going to happen. The Yankees struggled to get that one big hit, but they got just enough. Carlos Rodón probably didn’t end the night exactly how he wanted, but he did just enough. New York didn’t exactly look like the world-beaters they were on Monday night, but they were good enough to notch the 3-2 victory, and fourth straight series win to open the year. The Yankees are the first team in the majors to reach 10 wins, and they’re 10-2 for just the fourth time in franchise history.
Carlos Rodón may have a shiny new toy, a changeup that drops hard against righthanded hitters. He used it in the first to sit Josh Bell down with a man on, and featured it eight other times with a 50 percent whiff rate. He had only thrown it six times in his previous two starts, which makes me think today was a conscious decision to use it as a weapon against the righties and switch hitters in the Marlins’ lineup.
Previously, Rodón’s third pitch against righties was a cutter that bore in, with the slider his secondary offering. I think a changeup is probably a better weapon than the cutter because it works in the far side of the plate, going away from hitters rather than in like the slider. I’ll need to look closer at the arm slot Carlos is using, but off one game they looked similar enough out of the hand that pairing those kinds of opposite movement becomes really intriguing.
Like Nestor Cortes last night, Rodón was never in any serious trouble through the first six innings, scattering one walk and three hits against six strikeouts. He looked to be on cruise control before walking Josh Bell to lead off the seventh. A rare error from Anthony Rizzo put two men on, and a ground ball that Jon Berti could merely snag without making a play spelled the end of Rodón’s night.
One of the hardest things in baseball is coming in relief with the bases loaded and nobody out, but that was exactly what the Yankees asked Ian Hamilton to do. An RBI groundout and sac fly made the score 3-2, with neither run charged to Rodón, but on the whole Hamilton got the three needed outs, and quickly.
Those three runs for the Yankees came from a less-explosive offensive evening, even though they did have traffic in each of the first seven innings. Aaron Judge may be close to waking up, taking a walk in the first and lacing a double down the left field line. Alex Verdugo was the one to break open the scoring, however.
In the fifth, after Tim Anderson’s throwing error put Juan Soto on second, Judge walked a second time and set up Giancarlo Stanton, who continued his recent hot streak:
Juan Soto wasn’t done making his impact on the game, as he drove in what would turn out to be the game-winning run in the sixth, much-needed insurance that we didn’t know we needed at the time.
Hamilton and Holmes continue to be one of the tougher back-end combinations in MLB, with Holmes throwing a clean ninth to seal the win, and guarantee the Yankees four straight series wins to start the year. We came into this series worried it was a bit of a trap, given the highs of the opening weekend and how poorly Miami had done entering play Monday.
Now, tomorrow’s one of those house money games. The Yankees took care of business, but a sweep against a team with only one win sounds a lot nicer than just two out of three. They haven’t really punted or run out a “B-lineup” at any point this season, so hopefully they go for the throat in the race for the sweep. Marcus Stroman, the team’s best pitcher through 11 games, gets the ball with a 7:05pm Eastern start, but do note the game is on Amazon
