Carlos Rodón needs to pitch better for the Yankees after their Game 2 loss

So many times in his career, when things went wrong for Carlos Rodón, the people around him saw it coming. At first he slumps and scowls. Then he barks in frustration. He starts to miss his location. He turns his back on a coach or kicks a hitter in the dugout. He starts off as one of the most electrifying pitchers in the game; He ends up exhausted, his wires broken.

So in a way it was strange that he wasn’t there on Monday, when he lasted just 3⅔ innings for the New York Yankees in the Kansas City Royals’ 4-2 win that ended the American League Division Series tied at one game apiece went out of the race.

“I thought I had myself somewhat under control,” the 31-year-old left-hander said afterwards at his locker in a quiet clubhouse.

For better or worse, Monday was all about pitching.

He had worked to convert his emotions into fuel in the days leading up to Game 2, knowing that the 48,034 screaming fans at Yankee Stadium would bring him plenty of energy. Before the game, he tried to take it all in as they cheered him on.

And at first he gave them plenty to cheer about. He threw 12 pitches in the first game, 10 of which were for strikes. He stuck out his tongue, grinned, and roared as he charged off the hill. In the third round, he removed a liner from his glove hand and received an ovation as he waved off the sneakers. He overwhelmed the Royals with three goals. His speed increased by more than a mile and a half per hour with each use.

The Yankees took a 1-0 lead in the third with a walk by Gleyber Torres and singles by Austin Wells and Giancarlo Stanton. Then perhaps Rodón began to think too much. Leading the way was Salvador Pérez, who posted a .462 batting average with three home runs in 27 plate appearances against Rodón.

“Just as I had good success against him, he also had a lot of strikeouts against me,” Pérez said before the game. “I think we’re 50/50.”

Fifty-Fifty for a hitter is, of course, a Hall of Fame number. Pérez had seen a pitch on his first at-bat – a fastball that he threw to third base. Rodón wanted to see how he would approach this meeting. Pérez dropped a pair of sliders to his ankles. Rodón decided to throw another one. He left it in the middle of the plate.

“I wanted to be in the zone, or I wanted to be near the zone,” he says. “And I mean, he took a great swing and crushed the ball.”

The next batter, Yuli Gurriel, singled on a 2-2 slider deep in the zone and went to second on a slider that bounced off the plate. But Rodón did not fall apart. He beat Michael Massey and scored 1-2 against Tommy Pham. Then Rodón threw a slider that didn’t slide, and Pham hit it to right to score another run.

“They made some good throws and some not so good ones,” Rodón said. “That 1-2 regulator should have been buried. I could have handled that better.”

Pham stole second. Here Rodón began to slump his shoulders a little, jam his left hand into his glove, squeeze the baseball as if he were trying to squeeze out juice. But he took a deep breath and struck out Hunter Renfroe, then took a 1-2 lead against No. 9 batter Garrett Hampson, who had hit a single to move him to center in his first out. Rodón threw two four-seaters well beyond the zone.

“I probably tried to do too much with a few fastballs, but they were high and sputtered out of the zone, so they weren’t competitive,” he muses.

But his final slider was fine, it was below the zone. Hampson still hit the ball to his left, and because third baseman Jazz Chisholm is a natural centerfielder playing just his 47th game at the position, he was in the wrong spot to cut the ball. Pham scored; Hampson finished second.

Manager Aaron Boone stalked to the mound to take the ball from Rodón, who had thrown 39 pitches in the first three innings and – somehow, gradually and then suddenly – 33 pitches in the fourth inning alone. Rodón strutted off the field, shaking his head at himself.

“Everything went pretty well,” he says. “And it was just one of those things where I shouldn’t have lost focus, but I should have just stayed aggressive and charged at them.”

He adds: “I feel like there were some moments where I was too good and I could have been more aggressive about some things and I could have been better, but I’ll learn from it (if) I do Play through the game.” – which I have done a thousand times and will do the rest of the night.”

Perhaps it’s a relief to see that, for once, the answer is simply: pitch better.