How Carlos Rodón, with assists from Pettitte and Cole, rewarded Yankees’ Game 1 gamble

NEW YORK — This is why the Yankees are paying Carlos Rodón $162 million over six years: to have a top-notch poker face. 

Rodon’s biggest challenge taking the mound for Game 1 of the American League Championship Series wasn’t navigating Cleveland’s dangerous lineup. Rodón’s greatest enemy was actually himself. 

When the veteran allows his emotions to take control over his outing, things can quickly get out of whack. It’s what happened in his first start this postseason against the Royals; he was amped too early and too often — sticking his tongue out and gaping after a first-inning strikeout — and allowed his focus to slip away from the task at hand. He was pulled after coughing up four earned runs in just 3.2 innings against Kansas City.

But he learned a lot in the week between his next playoff start. He studied Gerrit Cole, received advice from Andy Pettitte, and said he would be better his next time out. Even so, it’s one thing to do all the prep, but it’s another to actually execute on the mound — no less in a playoff start. 

Finally, in his team’s 5-2 win over the Guardians on Monday night at Yankee Stadium, the fiery left-hander put his career 11.37 postseason ERA in the rearview and pitched with authority. 

“The goal was to stay in control,” Rodón said. “Stay in control of what I can do, physically and emotionally. I thought I executed that well tonight.”

He was being modest. Rodón struck out nine batters and allowed just one run on three hits across six innings, and kept his emotions in check every time. But it was easy to tell this was a battle for Rodón. Being nonreactive isn’t exactly second nature for him. He seemed to be putting as much effort into controlling his emotions as he was into his pitch diet of fastballs, sliders, curveballs and changeups. Rather than acknowledge the crowd’s raucous energy with some of his own, Rodón rolled his shoulders back and kept his head down on the mound. The southpaw proceeded to register 25 swings and misses.

He was locked in, and it manifested. 

Rodón’s only blemish of the night came on a Brayan Rocchio home run to lead off the sixth inning. But there was no ensuing meltdown. There was no look of befuddlement as he watched Rocchio’s long ball sail over the left-field wall. He retired the next three batters and finished his outing by pointing his glove at Aaron Judge, who ran down a rocket off José Ramírez’s bat for the final out of the sixth. Rodón sent down the Guardians slugger in all three of their meetings.

“I think he was very aware of what the last outing ended up being and just how the emotions got away from him early,” Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake said. “That was going to be a focus for him throughout the game. Each inning you could tell he was trying to stay steady and be neutral about it and just keep collecting outs.”

While Rodón went to work, the Yankees piled on. Juan Soto slammed his first postseason home run as a Yankee in the third inning, putting New York on the board with a 1-0 lead. Giancarlo Stanton added insurance in the seventh with his second home run of the postseason, which was his 13th career playoff jack since 2018. Stanton has a 1.244 OPS in five postseason games this October. But while Soto, Stanton and Aaron Judge all collected RBIs in the Game 1 victory, it was Rodón who stood out as the game changer.

“He was the driver tonight,” Stanton said of Rodón. “Juan got us going on the offensive side, but Carlos was holding them down and giving us a chance to score and add to it.”

Rodón didn’t achieve this picture of poise on his own. 

Days after the Royals detected that his emotions were running high and sent him packing in the fourth inning, Rodón sought out advice from Pettitte, the former Yankees southpaw and five-time World Series champion, on how to keep a good poker face on the mound. Pettitte, currently in an advisor role with the Yankees, won 63.3% of his postseason decisions in part by refusing to allow the opponent in on what he was thinking and feeling. Rodón said Pettitte’s advice left an impression. 

Then, while Cole dominated the Royals in Kansas City last Thursday, Rodón leaned on the dugout railing and closely watched his every reaction. Captivated, Rodón kept his eyes focused on Cole even as drama unfolded between Anthony Volpe and Maikel Garcia at second base. Rodón watched as Cole became agitated without letting the situation ruin what had been a strong outing. 

“You can tell he gets a little pissed off,” Rodón said of Cole. “But he kind of just keeps it in frame and gets back on the mound. They do end up scoring a run, but he keeps them to one run. The biggest thing I saw from him in the seventh, he didn’t react every inning. If you watched him come out, it’s just like a robot walking to the dugout. Then at the end of the seventh, it’s a big roar because he knows, I did my job. I think that’s one thing that resonated with me from that start.”

Rodón tried to be like Cole the robot against Cleveland and, for the most part, he was. His six innings of one-run ball weren’t just important for the Yankees, who took a 1-0 series lead over the Guardians to begin the ALCS, but an enormous response to the criticism manager Aaron Boone received for going with Rodón in the first place. With Cole slotted for Game 2 on four days’ rest, Boone was choosing between right-hander Clarke Schmidt or Rodón for the series opener. Cleveland was the third-best offensive team in the AL against left-handers in the regular season, so no one would’ve blamed Boone if he opted to start Schmidt in Game 1. 

But Rodón was signed by the Yankees for moments like Monday; a packed house of 47,264 in the Bronx, doing his part as the rotation’s lethal 1-2 punch alongside Cole, all while being accountable in front of the zoo that is the New York media.

The mental and physical flow Rodón realized in Game 1 was the elixir to the ghastly postseason ERA he brought into Monday night’s outing. This was exactly what the Yankees expected from Rodón when they made him the highest-paid pitcher in the 2023 free-agent class. After being limited to just 14 starts because of injuries last year, and posting a dreadful 6.85 ERA in the process, this was Rodón’s year to start earning his contract. He showed up to spring training noticeably slimmer, then stayed out of the trainer’s room all season, and bounced back with a 3.96 ERA across a career-high 32 healthy starts and 175 innings. 

Rodón’s 26-week stretch of being a workhorse in the regular season helped the Yankees get to this point, particularly when Cole missed the first two-plus months with an elbow injury. But Rodón can give the Yankees a bigger, more important lift by replicating this routine his next time out.

The Yankees are three wins from advancing to the World Series. Rodón can count on one hand how many more times he will need his poker face.

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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