Not long after the ugliest moment of Carlos Rodón’s terrible first season with the New York Yankees, he found himself in a room apologizing to pitching coach Matt Blake.
It was bad enough that Rodón had surrendered an unthinkable eight earned runs without getting a single out in his final start of the year against the lowly Kansas City Royals at Kaufmann Stadium. The meltdown came as Rodón — handed a $162 million deal in the prior offseason to be ace Gerrit Cole’s No. 2 — would stumble through injuries and ineffectiveness to a 3-8 record with a 6.85 ERA. His struggles were far from the only reason the Yankees missed the playoffs last year for the first time in eight seasons, though they played a sizable role.
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But publicly dissing Blake was when Rodón hit his lowest point. Blake had made a mound visit amid the lefty’s meltdown, and instead of talking through his problems, Rodón waved Blake off with his glove and turned his back to him while the pair were on the mound. The slight was captured not just by TV cameras, which allowed for it to be replayed over and over on social media, but in front of his Yankees teammates and manager Aaron Boone, who immediately called him into his office for a closed-door meeting after the game and later said he might have considered disciplining Rodón for the act if it wasn’t Game No. 159 of 162.
But Rodón wasn’t oblivious. He knew he messed up. He quickly sought out Blake to address the matter.
“I apologized as soon as it was over,” the pitcher said.
Blake accepted it, and the pair moved on, though the wound wasn’t immediately healed.
“It just takes some time to earn the trust back a little,” Blake said, “but at the same time, I understand where he was coming from.”
Today, the bond between the two has returned. It’s been clear through Rodón’s performance. When the 31-year-old takes the mound Saturday against the Brewers in Milwaukee, he’ll be in a completely different space than he was this time last year.
Through five starts, Rodón has a 2.70 ERA and a 1-1 record. Though his strikeouts (7.4 K/9) are down and his walks (4.4 BB/9) are up from his career averages (9.9 K/9, 3.5 BB/9), he’s been able to pitch his way around jams and stay healthy. Last season, Rodón made just one spring training start before dealing with a forearm strain and then a lower back problem that held him out until May. He also fought through a hamstring strain.
Carlos Rodón, Wicked 89mph Back Foot Slider. 🤢 pic.twitter.com/0Urji7qggS
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 22, 2024
But this season, Rodón showed up early to Yankees camp. He was in better shape. He was lighter. He was stronger. He was determined to put last year behind him.
Blake and the entire Yankees pitching apparatus was ready to help. In the offseason, assistant pitching coach Desi Druschel helped design a throwing program that made Rodón ready for spring. Director of pitching Sam Briend and minor-league pitching coach Preston Claiborne played a hand in helping Rodón fashion a cutter that’s become a go-to pitch for him — behind his bread-and-butter fastball-slider combination.
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When the Yankees signed Rodón on Dec. 21, 2022, he and the Yankees didn’t have much of an offseason to get to know each other. And with Rodón’s spring training injury, they lost even more time to meld. While the team certainly did its due diligence regarding Rodon’s fiery on-field persona before chucking owner Hal Steinbrenner’s wallet at him, both sides entered this season more in tune with each other.
Rodón, who didn’t help himself when he blew a kiss at a heckler after a bad start in July at the Los Angeles Angels, doesn’t shy from the fact that he can be a handful when he’s in competition mode.
“When I’m on the field,” Rodón said, “I’m a different person. I’m not the same guy. Personality-wise, intensity-wise, the line dictates who I am. I have a job to do. I have a game to win or at least try. I have a performance to put on.”
One instance stood out to Rodón.
“There’s a video of me kicking a bat at someone,” he said.
On July 26, 2022, Rodón, then with the San Francisco Giants, walked down his dugout steps and booted a baseball bat propped up against the bat rack. It struck shortstop Thairo Estrada, who immediately fell, holding his left knee. Eventually, Estrada got up and was fine.
Carlos Rodón furiously kicked a bat which hit Thairo Estrada in the leg 😳 pic.twitter.com/8XXIe2iJtG
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) July 27, 2022
Rodón said he’s trying to be better at controlling his emotions.
“I know that it doesn’t happen overnight — you’ve just got to be very careful with how far you go,” he said. “I’m not saying I’m trying to go far with being crazy or anything. You don’t want to take away too much but you don’t want to do too much. That fire I have, it makes me. It can make or break. It makes me who I am. That’s why it’s a very fine line.
“Do I think those things are OK? No, I don’t. Am I trying to control them? Yeah.”
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That was a sticking point during the talk in Kansas City, Blake said.
“We just made sure that we don’t just let it slide,” Blake said, “that there is a conversation that we had and what the expectations are for how he should handle it, and how I should handle a mound visit, and what our general expectations for professionalism are with the Yankees. I think he understood the situation and I understood where he was coming from. I don’t think there were any misgivings about that. From that point on, it’s going to be about our behavior, and that’s ultimately what I’m going to hold him accountable to.”
And it wasn’t just about dissing him, Blake said. The pitching coach explained to Rodón that the “optics” of the whole ordeal were “not good,” and that because of it, both of them and other Yankees were going to have to answer questions about it.
“I have no ill will,” Blake said, “and I didn’t feel like he was doing it in spite of me. It was more like the situation he was in was why he was doing it. I happened to be the recipient because I walked into the lion’s den in that moment.”
Rodón has been more in control this year, Blake said.
“He’s been super professional all the way through,” the coach said. “It’s one moment in time that gets caught on TV, and obviously we have to address it, but we feel really comfortable with the relationship we have.”
The incident wasn’t a microcosm of their relationship, Rodón said. In fact, the two were on good terms before it, and are on even better terms now.
Rodón took it a step further when recalling his low moment with Blake last season.
“It could have been my own mother,” he said. “She probably would have (received) the same reaction.”
(Top photo of Blake and Rodón in Kansas City in Sept. 2023: Colin E. Braley / Associated Press)
