For a guy with a 9.00 ERA in the first inning on the season, perhaps an unusual start time will help Carlos Rodon.
He’ll take the mound Sunday in Baltimore for an 11:35 a.m. start.
“It’ll be nice and steamy,” Rodon said Friday. “I’ll be ready to go. We all have to play at 11:35, so it doesn’t matter.”
What does matter is that Rodon doesn’t end the first half with a similar first-inning performance to the one he had in his previous outing, when he was torched for four runs before he recorded an out in his fifth straight loss.
Carlos Rodon has a 9.00 ERA in the first inning this season.
Carlos Rodon will start for the Yankees on Sunday against the Orioles
In his 19 starts on the season, Rodon has allowed a 1.047 OPS to opposing hitters in the first, to go along with the ugly ERA.
His numbers are only worse in the seventh, which he’s only reached seven times.
Asked Friday about potential adjustments he intended to make against Baltimore, Rodon noted a change in pitch usage early on, perhaps with more curveballs and changeups.
His slider and four-seamer were pounded in the first inning at Tampa Bay, but he improved later in the outing with what Rodon said was perhaps a better pitch mix.
“I hope that kind of outing is a learning experience,” Rodon said. “You go back and look at what you could have done differently, but then you have to move forward.”
That starts — again — Sunday.
“The most important thing is to come out Sunday and give the team the best chance to win,” Rodon said. “What’s happened in the past has happened. There’s been good and there’s been bad, but that’s yesterday.”
And after a solid start to the season, Rodon is faced with some of the same questions he dealt with in his first season in The Bronx, which was largely awful.
“It’s tough,” Rodon said. “I want the results to be different. Like the other night, no one wants to give up four runs, not in the first inning in the game. But you’ve got to snap out of it. We have nine more innings of baseball to play and we have no outs. I have a job to keep it there at four. It happens, but I’ve got to be better.”
And he still believes he can figure it out and get back to being the pitcher he was in the two seasons prior to signing with the Yankees.
“For sure,” Rodon said. “Results-wise, it’s not close to where I want to be, obviously, but stuff-wise I feel I’m not far off. I have the stuff and some good metrics. That’s great on paper, but it’s about what actually happens in the game. Now it’s time to make that happen.”
