Thursday vs Blue Jays in Toronto
5.0 innings pitched
27 batters faced
107 pitches, 69 strikes
10 hits, 2 home runs, 2 doubles
8 runs, all earned
1 walk
8 strike outs
left game trailing 8-0
Blue Jays win 9-2
Rodon 9-5, 4.42 ERA
Carlos Rodn sat hunched forward on the bench in the visiting dugout at Rogers Centre, his elbows resting on his thighs. He'd worked hard to get through four innings, evidenced by the sweat seeping through his uniform top, as though he'd run through a sprinkler on a summer day.
The evening was a grind for Rodn, who leaned heavily on his fastball and struggled to generate swings and misses to escape from sticky situations. The Blue Jays wore Rodn down, gassing the left-hander early as the Yankees absorbed their third consecutive defeat, a
5-4 loss on Tuesday night.
"I give them props, because they had some really good at-bats," Rodn said. "They made me work. It was tough. I wish I was better tonight. I had good stuff; I had stuff to get guys out, but they had a good approach."
Rodn could have used some thunder behind him. As Judge said, "These are the ones that kill you as a hitter; just give the guy a couple more runs." Rodn threw 32 pitches in the first inning (including a 12-pitch Bo Bichette walk) and another 27 in the third, navigating heavy traffic.
Justin Turner lifted a sacrifice fly in the third, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. cashed two runs with a fourth-inning single off Rodn, who tossed 101 pitches (62 strikes), permitting five hits and four walks while striking out five.
"It was death by the foul ball tonight. They just kept spoiling pitches," manager Aaron Boone said. "He was in the strike zone, and the stuff was really good, but they outlasted him. A couple of the walks that ended up coming around and scoring did him in, but I thought he threw the ball well."
Of the 36 swings Toronto took at Rodn's four-seam fastball, only five generated whiffs. Rodn had better success with his slider, seeing misses on five of eight swings.
Rodn's first four starts have been a mixed bag. Through 19 2/3 innings, he has pitched to a 3.66 ERA with 18 strikeouts, but he has allowed 33 baserunners (22 hits and 11 walks).
"It's been all right," Rodn said. "I've had one real good game thus far (
April 9 vs. Miami). The other ones have been battles where I've been inconsistent with some command. It seems like I just need to be more effective with the secondaries and get in the zone so I can pitch deeper in the game."
https://www.mlb.com/yankees/news/carlos-rodon-struggles-in-yankees-loss-to-blue-jaysCarlos Rodn's miserable night was approaching the finish line as he eyed his manager ambling from the first-base dugout, a new arm hot and ready. The hurler bowed his head and muttered. He wasn't ready to leave.
"I want it," Rodn told Aaron Boone, who mulled the request briefly, then nodded. Jogging across the outfield grass, reliever Phil Bickford whirled with confusion and retreated to the bullpen, where he watched as Rodn completed the fifth inning in the Yankees'
9-2 loss to the Blue Jays on Thursday night at Rogers Centre.
"I just wanted to get through five for the bullpen, and just prove something to myself," Rodn said. "That even though I get knocked down, I can get back up and just keep going."
Perhaps that conclusion gives Rodn something to build upon, because there isn't much else the left-hander will want to bring home from this one. Rodn was hammered for eight runs, including a pair of three-run George Springer homers, as the Yanks' pitching woes continued. New York has lost a season-high four straight games and 10 of its past 13.
For a third consecutive start, an opponent feasted upon Rodn's fastball, with the Blue Jays following a similar game plan to the Red Sox and Braves. Rodn has allowed 21 runs (20 earned) over those 13 2/3 innings; he held teams to just 11 runs over a seven-start winning streak prior to that.
"Clearly, some teams game-planning are doing a good job against him," Boone said. "While he's wearing it right now and going through it, it's also kind of a gutsy effort to not want out, to want to finish through five, especially with what we're going through as a team right now."
Blue Jays manager John Schneider lauded his team's tactics against Rodn, saying that his hitters "stayed on the fastball really well."
"I just thought we had a really good plan," Schneider said. "You could kind of see him adjust after the second inning with a couple more cutters and changeups, but we were on the heater pretty well."
Rodn acknowledged that he trusted his secondary pitches more after the second inning, similar to the Braves start. He believes he is missing locations with his fastball, which touched 98.1 mph and sat 95.6 mph on Thursday.
"The command is just not great right now," Rodn said. "There are some adjustments to be made this week. I just need to be better."
Yet Rodn still hung around through five innings, which Boone appreciated.
"To us, that's a big deal, especially with what we're going through," Boone said. "His teammates see that, I see that. I respect the way he went out and competed tonight when it didn't go his way those first two innings. These are little things in the season that suck right now, but also make me continue to feel really good about this group and where we're going.
https://www.mlb.com/yankees/news/carlos-rodon-struggles-again-in-yankees-loss-to-blue-jays 
