Carlos Rodon expecting an atmosphere like no other for ALDS Game 2 at Yankee Stadium - and he's ready
Last year at this time, Carlos Rodon was just coming off sequestering himself in the Kansas City area, following a disastrous final start to end a tumultuous first season for the playoff-starved Yankees.
What a difference a year makes, as Rodon is starting Game 2 of the ALDS tonight against the Royals, only this time it’s in Yankee Stadium, where he knows it’s going to be rocking as he looks to put the Bombers up 2-0 in the best-of-five series.
“The energy (Saturday) was pretty spectacular. What a great game, it was great to see the stadium full, as always, and they brought a lot of energy, so I'm looking forward to that,” Rodon said Sunday. “That energy definitely fuels me. I think it's something that I have to harness and deliver it towards the plate. But I definitely use that. I'm going to try to use that to my advantage for sure.”
If Rodon has learned anything from his past playoff starts, it’s that the game can really speed up on you fast, so it’s on him to slow it down. That may be easier said than done in an environment like the one he expects in the Bronx for Game 2, but as he said, that energy fuels him.
“I think it's just one of those things where I go out there, I accept that energy, I bring it in and I harness it to the plate and control what I can control,” he said. “As soon as that pitch leaves my hand, it's kind of done with me. It's just focusing on what I'm going to do on the mound and what pitch I'm going to throw, and it's just kind of one pitch at a time deal. Early on in my career, I'd get pretty flustered, and there’s times that I still do – I think that's just kind of who I am, and it’s a double-edged sword; it's a fine line of it can propel me to very high highs and super low lows, because it can go both ways. I like to stay on the right side of the line where we're going high, we're going up.”
And if he’s learned anything from both last season and his own struggles this year, and turning it around after both, it’s that he’s here because he’s earned it, and deserves it – and if he needs to make adjustments in game for some reason, he can do that, too.
“I think one of the biggest things is the confidence and just finding that confidence again to go out there and compete. The biggest thing for me is the confidence and then the conviction in the pitch that I'm throwing and going out there trying to win ballgames,” Rodon said. “(In the second half) I just switched up some usage, being a little more unpredictable, and I had confidence in myself to be able to do my job, and my teammates having my back.”
He understands what he has done well in good starts, and some of the mistakes he’s made in bad ones, and he’s seen Kansas City twice this year (as well as seeing what Gerrit Cole and company did in Game 1), so he’s ready – and ready to get it done in a spot that means a lot after how, and where, last year ended, even after a 10-day layoff that required a sim game last week to stay sharp.
“Last year was rough; as we know, I did not perform the way I felt like I should have, and obviously up to par. I wanted to be better for my teammates,” Rodon said. “Going into this offseason with the help of a lot of people, we just got to work and put our nose to the grindstone and just got after it. The biggest thing was to go out there and make every start. I did that, and now this season is over. We've got a new season. It's the postseason.
That's what matters now, and we’ll go over their at-bats and see how we’re going to approach each hitter.”
