There have been times during Carlos Rodón’s career when an inning like this one might have gotten away from him.
In front of a raucous Friday night crowd, the Yankees’ offense had staked the left-hander to an early 4-0 lead over the Mets. Through three frames, he had yet to allow a hit -- much to the delight of the Bronx faithful who had come to “welcome” Juan Soto back to Yankee Stadium for the first time. Rodón’s slider had been untouchable; all four of his strikeouts had come on the pitch.
But now, the Mets were threatening. A leadoff walk to Soto followed by back-to-back one-out singles plated a run, and another walk with two outs loaded the bases, bringing the potential go-ahead run to the plate.
As YES Network commentators David Cone and Paul O’Neill recalled some of the bend-but-don’t-break pitchers who helped bring championships to New York a generation ago -- Jimmy Key, Andy Pettitte, Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez -- Rodón quickly got ahead of Luisangel Acuña, 0-2, with two sliders. But the pesky rookie battled back to even the count at 2-2. With 47,700 full-throated fans on their feet, the veteran hurler needed to make a pitch to get out of the jam.
At no point in his career did Rodón have so many effective and reliable options to choose from.
As Acuña geared up for Rodón’s 33rd offering of that taxing inning, he might have been expecting another slider, which had been working so well that night. He also had to account for the changeup -- a pitch Rodón has been throwing more often this season -- as well as his impressive new sinker and seldom-used but highly effective curveball.
When a four-seamer came screaming down the middle of the plate, a couple inches above the strike zone at 95 mph, the 23-year-old reacted as best he could, getting wood on it and sending an easy fly ball to Aaron Judge in right field for the final out of the fourth.
Now in his 11th season in the bigs, Rodón is the most complete all-around pitcher he has ever been. No longer just the two-pitch thrower whose high heat and wipeout slider were enough to earn a pair of All-Star selections and a six-year deal from the Yankees, the 32-year-old is now a five-pitch craftsman who has been through enough battles -- against hitters, his own body and even his own mind and emotions -- to be equipped for anything he might face in 2025.
Getting here was anything but easy.
“It was the long way around the island, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” Rodón says. “I think it made my mind strong. It made me who I am right now. And to be able to handle tough situations, it definitely built some armor for me.”
***
There have been plenty of pitchers who can be described as “stoic” on the mound, stone-faced competitors who remain emotionless outside of the most combustible situations.
Then there’s Rodón.
The southpaw is every bit as locked in as some of his less demonstrative peers, but part of Rodón’s effectiveness -- and what makes him so entertaining to watch -- is how he rarely hides his emotions. They’re right there on the short sleeves he wears, even when it’s 40 degrees and raining. He’s not quite the Mad Hungarian, Al Hrabosky, but hardly a pitch goes by without Rodón offering some kind of reaction -- an eye roll, a head tilt, a verbal comment -- mostly directed at himself, with the home plate umpire occasionally drawn into the conversation.
Rodón’s teammates, for the record, love it.
“I think everybody needs to play with some type of emotion,” says Judge. “He’s a guy that kind of flips a switch when it’s game day. He gets into this different mindset where, this guy’s on a mission. He knows what he needs to do, knows what he wants to execute, and he goes out there and does it. The intensity that he brings on a daily basis … as a position player, it gets you excited to go out there and bring the same intensity.
“I love every five days that he comes up.”
First baseman Paul Goldschmidt, who made an incredible over-the-shoulder catch for the first out of the fifth inning in that May 16 game against the Mets, agrees that there’s a different energy out on the field when Rodón takes the ball.
“You see him competing on the mound, and even if he’s maybe had a rough couple innings, you just see him not giving up. It motivates you even more, as a defender, to make those plays,” Goldschmidt says. “Early on, too, he pitched probably the worst weather games I’ve seen, and he doesn’t complain. That shows you his mental and physical toughness and how much he wants to go out there and win and compete, and that’s awesome to see from a teammate. That’s what we all want to do, and that’s how players in this locker room make the people around them better without even having to say anything. Because you see that, and it raises your game.”
Rodón’s not intentionally trying to fire up his teammates. His passionate performances come naturally -- a result of appreciating where he has been and where he is now. This is a guy who had one of the great collegiate careers in ACC history, pitched for the USA Collegiate National Team twice, was the first college pitcher taken in the 2014 Draft … and then missed huge chunks of time due to arm injuries and lost more games than he won during his first six seasons in the Majors.
“I’ve been the best in the world as an amateur and then showed up thinking I’m going to be the best in the world as a professional, and I got slapped in the face,” Rodón says. “I’ve been bad -- multiple times. I think that perspective is what drives me as a player and a teammate. I’m not saying I’m the greatest leader. I’m not. I’m a guy that kind of leads by example, and sometimes my examples aren’t the greatest. We’re not all perfect.
“But I’m grateful; very grateful. Every day that I go out there and step on the mound, I don’t take anything for granted because I’ve had it taken away from me.”
***
If an observer’s only knowledge of Rodón was the animated mound persona, they might suspect he spends the offseason skydiving or racing motorcycles to keep his adrenaline pumping. In reality, the married father of three is in his element in a deer blind on his Indiana homestead, silently scoping out a nine-point whitetail buck.
An avid outdoorsman, Rodón grew up in Miami, where his father would take him fishing for mahi-mahi and wahoo as a young boy. When the family moved to North Carolina, he turned to bass fishing, but in the back of his mind, Rodón always wanted to try hunting. Years later, after he met Ashley Paddock, her father finally gave him that opportunity. He fell in love with more than just his future bride.
“I feel like it’s what I was meant to do,” he says.
A true hunter is a steward of the land, someone who considers many factors before taking a shot (if the right opportunity even presents itself), and Rodón prides himself on how he and Ashley manage the herds on their property. “I have a lot of respect for the animals that I take,” he says. But it is also a way for their family to spend valuable bonding time together -- time that is difficult to come by during the lengthy baseball season. This past offseason, Rodón took his 4-year-old son, Bo, out for the first time, where they got a close-up look at a mature 5-year-old buck. But after being outside for an hour and a half, Bo was ready to go play with his sister and youth group friends at church. So, Ashley came and got him, and the majestic whitetail retreated deep into the woods.
“It was a special time for me to see him be able to experience that,” Rodón says. “I don’t think he knew exactly what he was seeing. He was excited, though. A lot of it for me is just, it was passed down to me, and I want to pass it on to my kids. It’s just me getting closer to God’s creation. I think that’s what it’s here for. So, I love every bit of it.”
The great outdoors could sometimes be a distraction for Rodón when he was with the White Sox; Chicago is just a two-and-a-half-hour drive from his offseason home. As a Yankee, his only call of the wild might be imitating a hoot owl to try and summon the wild turkeys roaming around the outskirts of his back yard in Greenwich, Conn. Most days, the only deer he admires are the ones in the massive painting done by his friend and wildlife artist Ryan Kirby that hangs in his home office. From Spring Training through the last out of the season, Rodón knows he needs to stay focused on his craft or risk letting it get away from him again.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone points to the days in between Rodón’s starts as a key factor in his recent success. Over time, the pitcher has learned what he needs to do -- and what he doesn’t -- to prepare. He understands that he doesn’t need to be in the training room hours and hours ahead of his start or throw the exact same number of pitches in each one of his bullpens. It’s about quality over quantity.
“I heard a quote from Adam Wainwright, who said, ‘If you have a routine, and you feel like you can’t pitch because you didn’t do your routine, then that’s just superstition,’” Rodón says. “I take a little while to get ready, but I’m very meticulous throughout the week. When I play catch, I might only make 25 throws, but when I make those 25 throws, I’m trying to throw it at that button on your shirt. Same thing with the bullpens. They’re not max effort. They’re not full go. This last week, I think the hardest fastball I threw in the bullpen was 86. I threw a fastball in the game yesterday probably 96. So, the intensity doesn’t have to be there. It’s the execution.
“Because if I’m moving right, I’m going to throw as hard as I want to throw.”
As much as anything that Rodón has learned since he was drafted third overall in 2014, “moving right” is probably the most important. He threw hard during a decorated college career at N.C. State, where he and Trea Turner led the Wolfpack to their first College World Series appearance in 45 years. He threw hard during a Minor League career that lasted just 11 games before he was called up to The Show. He kept throwing hard in the Majors, even when his arm started hurting, because he was getting results: nine wins in 23 starts as a rookie in 2015; 28 starts and another nine wins the following year. But he started to change how he threw to try and counteract the discomfort in his left arm, which led to lengthy stays on the injured list and -- eventually, in 2019 -- Tommy John surgery. In six years, he went from being “the guy that’s going to carry us forever” in Chicago to being non-tendered after the 2020 season.
But during Spring Training of 2021, after he re-signed with the White Sox on a one-year deal, pitching coach Ethan Katz helped Rodón figure out how he needed to move down the mound toward home plate. “That kind of built my base after Tommy John,” he says. “It was like, OK, this is how I move. This is step one. You know what step one is, and if something goes wrong, you can always come back to step one and get back to where you need to be.”
That simplified approach to his mechanics -- coupled with finally catching a break, health-wise -- allowed Rodón to flourish. He no-hit Cleveland in his second start of ’21, made his first All-Star team and finished fifth in AL Cy Young voting with a 13-5 record. The following year, as a San Francisco Giant, Rodón went 14-8 during another All-Star campaign. Last season, he won a career-high 16 games for the Yankees and earned his first postseason victory in the ALCS opener against the Guardians.
Every bit of that success starts with his delivery.
“I’m very comfortable and committed to how I’m moving down the mound,” Rodón says. “I feel like you could put any grip in my hand, and I could probably throw that pitch. I’m in control of my body, and I know where I’m going to be. The rest is just a grip. That’s all it is.”
***
Among the many pitches in Max Fried’s nasty arsenal is a sinker that the three-time Gold Glove winner deploys regularly to get ground-ball outs. Soon after arriving in Tampa, Fla., for his first Spring Training with the Yankees, Fried unleashed one of them while playing catch with Rodón.
I’ll throw you one of those, Rodón thought to himself.
He had thrown plenty of sinkers during his time in Chicago but abandoned the pitch after the Tommy John surgery. “It wasn’t good,” Rodón says. “It was like a dead zone fastball back then.”
He fired one to his new teammate, who was impressed. Somewhat.
"Max was like, ‘You know, it’s not bad.’”
After a few more sinkers and some discussion about how to hold it, Rodón stumbled upon a grip that felt pretty good. Fried encouraged him to throw it in his next bullpen so that Matt Blake and Preston Claiborne -- the Yankees’ pitching coach and assistant pitching coach, respectively -- could lay eyes on it.
With less-than-average movement -- around 10 inches of vertical break and 10 inches of horizontal break -- “it was like a dead zone freaking sinker again,” Rodón says. Blake told him it needed more gyro -- spin tilted toward the plate, resulting in a straighter pitch until gravity grabs a hold of it and sends it careening as it nears the catcher’s mitt.
“That was all I needed to hear,” Rodón says. “I knew I just needed to supinate my wrist and then throw it like a cutter for seam effect. I threw it, and it read like 3 vert and 14 horizontal. And Preston’s like, ‘You can’t do it again.’ I turn around, I go, ‘Bet.’ He goes, ‘You can’t do it again.’ I threw it, and I did it again, and then I did it again. And we’re like, I might have to try to throw this.”
After a soft launch in his final spring training outing against the Tigers, Rodón officially reintroduced his sinker in an Opening Day victory against the Brewers at Yankee Stadium. He threw it a dozen times in his second start, then a bit more sparingly over three straight road wins to close out April. Through the first month of the season, he had allowed just 22 hits in 42 innings pitched, and through mid-May, he remained among the AL leaders in hits per nine, strikeouts and wins.
“It’s a lot more fun,” Rodón says of his expanded repertoire. “It’s not as exhausting because when you’re just trying to shove fastballs down guys’ throats, it’s a lot of effort.”
Boone often says how proud he is of Rodón, not only because of his growth as a pitcher, but because of the adversity he has handled along the way.
“The first year here, he got smacked in the face, right?” Boone said, recalling Rodón’s uninspiring 2023 debut with the Yanks. “A couple minor injuries that slowed him, playing catch-up, struggled, and he answered it. He didn’t run from that at all.
“It’s not easy, what he’s gone through, and he didn’t run from it at all, and so I’m just proud of that fact. I think he’s evolved as a pitcher. He’s better at controlling his emotions because he’s a fiery, intense competitor. He’s learned to rein that in a little bit. As a starting pitcher, I think it’s so important to continue to focus on the next pitch, the next pitch, the next pitch. And he keeps getting better and better at that.”
***
Rodón doesn’t recall where he was exactly, but sometime after his first shoulder surgery in 2017, he heard an Alice in Chains lyric that struck a chord with him. In the song “Rooster,” written by guitarist and vocalist Jerry Cantrell as an imagination of how his father evaded death while fighting in the Army, singer Layne Staley yowls: Ain’t found a way to kill me yet.
“Obviously, that song is about war -- Vietnam, specifically -- but that line really resonated with me,” Rodón says. “I feel like that just embodies everything I did. Like, I’m not gonna stop until I’m dead.”
He has since used the classic grunge song as his warm-up music before every start. During those dark years in Chicago, when his arm kept betraying him, he wondered how much longer he would last before figuring out what to do next with his life. Now, pitching like an All-Star again and with a contract that will keep him in pinstripes through his age-35 season in 2028, “I feel like I could play probably until I’m 40,” Rodón says.
His goal, of course, is to become a World Series champion. “That is the most important part of this all. They say winning as a Yankee, there’s nothing better.” But however many more years he has, Rodón will stick to his routine and not overdo it with his preparation. He’ll continue to evolve as a pitcher and become ever more unpredictable to hitters. And in the heat of battle, his trademark intensity will be on display for all to see.
“Knowing what I need and how my body reacts to when I pitch and what I need to throw -- it took a long time to figure that out. I want to keep playing till Father Time says it’s time to stop, but I don’t want to go out as a shell of myself -- I want to go out on top.”
Nathan Maciborski is the executive editor of Yankees Magazine. This story appears in the June 2025 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.