ALDS Game 2: Rodón buckles, big bats go dormant

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The party ended quickly for the lefty, and the offense never even received an invitation.

Carlos Rodón opened Game 2 of the American League Division Series on Monday night firing on all cylinders. He hollered when he struck out Maikel Garcia to open the game. He shouted "let's go, boys" to his infielders when he put away Bobby Witt Jr. on strikes. Then when Vinnie Pasquantino went too far on a check swing to end the frame, he looked positively dumbfounded at his own prowess.

It was honestly an electrifying sequence, and it set Yankee Stadium coursing with optimism.

But Rodón's joyride stopped abruptly in the fourth inning, when Salvador Pérez (he of the 12-for-26 lifetime numbers against the lefty) crushed a home run to left to tie the game. While disappointing, the homer should not have been cause for any major concern. It was still a 1-1 game, and Carlos had been cruising up to this point.

But it was the beginning of the end for Rodón, who melted down against the bottom of the Royals' order to surrender three more runs in the inning and put the Yankees in a hole they couldn't climb out of. The Yankees went down meekly by a 4-2 final to split the first two contests as the series shifts to Kansas City.

As Josh Diemert noted in his recap, for the pitcher who the Yankees brought in at six years and $166 million to essentially be a "second ace" of sorts behind Gerrit Cole, last night was another chapter of a familiar theme: an inability by Rodón to handle adversity. Before Perez's homer, he was untouchable. Afterward, he was unwatchable.

Below are all 33 pitches he threw in the fourth. Note the not-even-close fastballs and multiple sliders right over the middle.

Josh also discussed how Rodón matches up with Kansas City a few days ago and noted the Royals' weakness against fastballs, which he was able to exploit the last time he faced them. Indeed, he was fastball-heavy on Monday, to great effect through the first three innings.

However, it was evident that he started to miss badly with the pitch once the momentum started to turn. Sometimes we're prone to overanalysis in our corner of the online baseball ecosystem. But this one really feels self-explanatory: Carlos had it, then he lost it.

The particularly frustrating part of this dud from Rodón is how thrillingly it began. The biggest challenge by far for him this year was the first inning; he had a 6.49 ERA in the opening frame this year. Usually, if he got through the first in decent shape, then he was good to go. Last night's opening salvo was about as close to perfection as one could envision, but Rodón couldn't hold onto that groove. It seems that once he hits one bump, it severely hampers his ability to perform. Many times, that happened right out of the gate. This time, it happened in the fourth.

Exacerbating matters is the fact that the Yankees gave up the three post-homer runs to three weak hitters. Tommy Pham (.674 regular season OPS), Garrett Hampson (.576) and Maikel Garcia (.614) are not exactly Murderers' Row, but Rodón surrendered RBI hits to the first two before Hamilton came in and allowed the third on his first pitch. These are not the kinds of hitters you should be allowing to string together a game-winning rally in the postseason, especially when your brightest star continues to slumber.

In the third inning, as Aaron Judge took his second plate appearance of the night, the TBS broadcast flashed a chyron on-screen. It showed a list of the five players with the highest strikeouts in their postseason careers, minimum 200 plate appearances. With a 34.3-percent strikeout rate, Judge held the top spot. He did mercifully put the bat on the ball in play that time, but it was a routine fly out to right.

It was another punchless night from Judge, who went 1-for-3 with a walk and a .170-xBA infield single. The Yankees need their captain, fresh off the best hitting season by a right-handed hitter in MLB history, to play like an MVP in the playoffs. The persnickety underperformance-in-the-postseason narrative is starting to get deployed on Judge, and his results in the first two games of the season have done him no favors in that regard.

It was also a quiet night for Juan Soto, who curbed his momentum from a three-hit showing in Game 1 by going 0-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts. If the opposing pitching staff can handle the Big Two, generating runs is a herculean undertaking for the Yankees, and last night was no different.

The Yankees' somnambulant offensive effort was particularly unforgivable in the context of the stuff Cole Ragans was showing. The Royals' ace lefty walked the first two batters he faced, setting Judge up with yet another key RBI opportunity in the opening inning. But Judge struck out on a fastball in the zone, and the rally quickly unraveled as it did in Game 1.

Ragans was battling his command all night, throwing almost 50 pitches in the first two innings. But the Yankees could not get the big hit, only scoring on a Giancarlo Stanton rifle shot which clanged off Witt's glove and scored Gleyber Torres thanks to some heads-up baserunning. They stranded six runners against Ragans, who only finished four innings before yielding to the KC bullpen.

One silver lining to this game for the Yankees which will unfortunately be little more than a footnote is the performance of the bullpen. After Rodón's meltdown, Ian Hamilton got four important outs. When Jake Cousins faltered, Tim Hill picked him up and stranded two. Clay Holmes left a runner on second with a strong seventh. Tommy Kahnle struck out three in the eighth. Tim Mayza even grabbed a few outs in the ninth, before Luke Weaver came in to grab one right at the end. The Yankees' pitching staff combined to strike out fifteen Royals.

But again, it's only a footnote. The Royals' bullpen matched New York's, zero-for-zero, and the Yankees' offense didn't really get a rally going after scratching across that lone run in the third. The terrible control from KC pitching bailed them out Game 1; there were no such gifts to be found this time around, and the starting nine paid the price.

Even when Jazz Chisholm Jr. homered off Lucas Erceg to open the ninth and Jon Berti got a hit to bring up the tying run, Torres—otherwise one of the few consistent bats thus far—beat the first pitch he saw into the ground to seal their fate.

Carlos Rodón's start was another frustrating display of inconsistency from a pitcher for whom consistency has been elusive since putting on pinstripes. But the Yankees' offensive malaise doomed any thoughts of a late comeback. The series is far from over, but the obvious truth bears repeating again and again: this team will not advance if its biggest stars cannot drive in runs.