This is the Carlos Rodón the Yankees thought they were getting. When Brian Cashman inked the lefty to a six-year, $162-million contract in December 2022, Rodón was coming off a two-season stretch in which he’d gone 27-13 with a 2.67 ERA, 2.42 FIP, and 12.23 strikeouts per nine innings. From 2021 to 2022, his 11.2 WAR ranked the third among all pitchers. But, like Samson of old, Rodón’s strength deserted him when his beard fell victim to the Yankees’ facial-hair policy. A forearm strain and a hamstring issue limited him to 14 starts in 2023, and when he did take the hill, he ran an unsightly 6.85 ERA. He was better this season, but he was by no means the ace the Bronx faithful were expecting.
That guy finally showed up on Monday night. Rodón powered the Yankees to a 5-2 victory over the Guardians in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, going six dominant innings and allowing one earned run on a solo homer. He blew his fastball by the Guardians and tempted them over and over again into chasing his slider as it burrowed into the dirt.
Rodón’s counterpart (and his teammate on the 2022 Giants) had a very different night, recording just one whiff on 20 swings. Alex Cobb started the season on the IL due to hip surgery. He made his first start in August, but after just two more starts, blister and nail issues sidelined him for the remainder of the regular season. On Monday night, Cobb’s gameplan was clear from the very beginning: Never touch any more of the strike zone than was absolutely necessary. He started his sinker off the plate in the hope of running it back just far enough to nick the very edge of the strike zone. He was unfazed by misses, attempting to hit that razor thin spot over and over again, when he realized the Yankees wouldn’t be chasing his splitter below the zone. For a bit, it looked like that plan might just work. Cobb allowed two singles in each of the first two innings, but he also induced groundouts and picked up two called strikeouts.
Juan Soto, who came into the game 8-for-11 against Cobb with two home runs, led off the third inning for the Yankees, and that’s as much foreshadowing as anybody should need. Cobb threw a sinker that caught entirely too much of the plate, ending up belt high and right down the middle. Soto clobbered it, launching a towering 110-mph blast that traveled 387 feet to right center and landed in the home bullpen to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead.
Soto’s missile set off alarm bells in the visitor’s bullpen as well. Cleveland’s relievers leapt into action with so much speed and manpower that the scene resembled a circuit training class. Cobb walked Aaron Judge, prompting a mound visit by a delegation that included manager Stephen Vogt, pitching coach Carl Willis, and a member of the training staff. With the catcher and infielders joining the scrum as well, the Guardians were one short of a minyan right there on the mound. After the game it was revealed that Cobb was experiencing hip tightness, but he was allowed to keep going. The conference worked — momentarily anyway. Cobb struck out Austin Wells on a splitter, his first and only whiff of the game. He walked Giancarlo Stanton too, got Jazz Chisholm Jr. to fly out to left, and then walked Volpe to load the bases. Vogt had seen enough, calling on Joey Cantillo to get out of the bases-loaded jam.
It was a surprising choice for such a big moment. Cantillo appeared in just nine games during the regular season, and although he struck out well over a batter an inning, he also ran a 4.87 ERA and 4.07 FIP while running one of the team’s lowest strand rates. When asked about the decision to go with Cantillo in such a high-leverage spot, Vogt declined to get into the details, saying, “Joey’s done a good job for us coming out of the bullpen and that inning just kind of got away from him.”
Cantillo, to put it charitably, looked a bit nervous. He bounced his 2-0 pitch to Anthony Rizzo. The ball went in and out of catcher Bo Naylor’s glove. Judge, reading the downward angle, scored easily to extend New York’s lead to 2-0. The other runners moved up as well, and then Cantillo threw yet another ball, walking Rizzo on four pitches to reload the bases. It was the fourth walk of the inning, and Willis came out for his second mound visit of the inning. Cantillo threw another wild pitch to Alex Verdugo, and once again all three runners moved up. Stanton’s run made it 3-0.
According to Katie Sharp, it was the first time in postseason history that a team had scored on two different bases-loaded wild pitches in the same game. Mercifully (and inexplicably), Verdugo chased a changeup well off the plate for strike three to end the inning. That also closed the book on Cobb, who went 2 2/3 innings, allowing five hits, three walks (all of them in the third inning), and three runs.
Rodón sliced through the Cleveland lineup with a fly out and two strikeouts in the top of the fourth, and the Guardians were immediately back on the field and back in trouble again. Cantillo returned to start the bottom of the inning, and he wasted no time, walking Gleyber Torres to lead off the inning. Torres advanced to second and then third on Cantillo’s third and fourth wild pitches of the night, and Cantillo walked Soto, making it first and third with no outs. Between Cobb and Cantillo, the Guardians had walked six of their last nine batters. It was the end of Cantillo’s night. He retired just one Yankee, walked three, and threw four wild pitches. He was just the second player ever to throw four wild pitches in a postseason game. The first was Rick Ankiel. Poor Pedro Avila came into the game with no outs, runners on the corners, and Judge at the plate. For a moment, he seemed to be suffering from whatever ailed Cobb and Cantillo, falling behind 3-0. Avila finally found the strike zone, and Judge just missed his pitch, launching a moonshot to shallow center at a 45-degree launch angle. After 15 minutes or so, the ball came down and Torres tagged up to make it a 4-0 game.
As dispiriting as the third and fourth innings were for Cleveland, the game was by no means out of reach. In the top of the sixth, Brayan Rocchio led off and jumped all over a center-cut fastball from Rodón, sending it 378 feet into the left-field bleachers. Rodón set down the next three batters in order to end his evening. He surrendered just three hits and struck out nine Guardians while inducing 25 whiffs over his six innings. It was a dominant performance, but it was also a three-run game with three innings left to play.
After Avila retired the first two batters of the bottom of the sixth, he passed the baton to Erik Sabrowski, who struck out Soto swinging to end the inning. Unlike Vogt, Aaron Boone was in no mood to mess around. He brought in Clay Holmes to pitch the seventh, and the former closer worked a 1-2-3 inning. Sabrowski returned in the seventh; he got Judge to line out and whiffed Wells for the first two outs. Then Stanton hit a trademark low line drive home run that streaked across the field and banged off the top of the high wall in the back of the bullpen. The ball came off the bat at 114.3 mph and traveled a projected 439 feet in approximately one nanosecond. At its apex, it was 77 feet above the ground.
The Guardians kept battling in the eighth. Left-hander Tim Hill came in to pitch for the Yankees, and after getting the leadoff man — pinch-hitter (!) Austin Hedges (?) — to fly out, he surrendered back-to-back singles to Andrés Giménez and Rocchio. That second single shot off Rizzo’s glove and into shallow right field. Soto threw behind Rocchio to Hill, who was covering first, and for a moment it appeared that Rocchio had run into a back-breaking, rally-killing out. Instead, Rocchio was awarded second base because Hill had blocked his path as he attempted to round the base in the first place. Steven Kwan then laced a single into left field to score Giménez, making it 5-2, and putting runners on first and third with one out. Once again, Boone took no chances. Closer Luke Weaver came in to end the threat and did just that. In the ninth inning, Weaver allowed a leadoff walk, then struck out three straight Guardians to secure a five-out save and 1-0 series lead. It was Weaver’s third multi-inning save of the postseason; it was the Yankees’ fifth postseason game.
After running the fifth-lowest strikeout rate in baseball this season, the Guardians struck out 14 times. Meanwhile, Rodón looks like he can hang with Gerrit Cole as a co-ace, Rizzo has miraculously returned from two fractured fingers just 16 days ago, and the team’s stars are hitting well.
Despite monster home runs from both Soto and Stanton, the real story of the game was Cleveland’s seven walks and four wild pitches. It was the kind of loss that can demoralize a team, but it’s tempting to think that Vogt and the Guardians don’t mind that much. After getting 25 2/3 innings from the bullpen during the Division Series, Vogt managed to get all of his most valuable relief arms a second straight day of rest. It seems likely that the calculus was to tax them further only if it meant securing a lead. Waiting for a lead is a bold strategy, especially in a series where the Guardians simply can’t match New York’s offensive firepower. Cleveland had a 100 wRC+ this season, compared to the Yankees’ 117. That plan could end up leaving the team’s best arms unused when they’re needed the most. Who knows how the game would have gone had Cade Smith replaced Cobb in the third inning and kept the score at 1-0? In Tanner Bibee and Cole, both teams will have their aces on the mound on Tuesday, and you have to think that the Guardians will pull out all the stops to avoid a two-game deficit.
