I hate getting shut out. It’s humiliating. And one of my worst baseball fears is being on the wrong end of a no-hitter. For an uncomfortable amount of tonight’s game, both seemed like very real possibilities.
Thankfully, the Yankee offense came alive eventually, led by the triumphant return of a key member of the lineup. Meanwhile, Carlos Rodón remained en fuego on the mound. He entered tonight amid a dominant stretch and outside of one Guardians hitter (whom you can likely guess) he was almost untouchable.
Considering Tanner Bibee was setting them up and knocking them down early for Cleveland, Rodón being on point from the outset was huge. The Yankee southpaw came into tonight having hurled two straight scoreless outings, covering 13 innings, and he had a 1.27 ERA in eight starts since losing to the Giants on April 13th.
It looked for a hot minute like Rodón might be in trouble in the first. A pair of singles, one by noted Yankee killer José Ramírez, put runners on the corners with one out. Ramírez promptly stole second to put two men in scoring position. But Rodón struck out the next two, escaping into the dugout with no damage.
Considering that the already-accomplished Ramírez seemingly turns into 2025 Aaron Judge when he visits Yankee Stadium (he had a career .394/.480/.716 triple slash at YS3 in 30 games entering tonight), whenever you can put a zero in the run column after facing him, you’ve done something.
Back to Bibee, who spun zero after zero to start this one. Bibee whiffed Judge to end the first en route to allowing zero hits through the first four innings. The Yankees’ sole runner reached via a Judge walk in the fourth.
Again though, Rodón remained up to the challenge. Following the Ramírez single, the portside slinger retired 17 consecutive Guardians, the last of which ended the sixth inning on a fan interference call when someone made the strange decision to get in Judge’s way on a foul fly ball. Rodón wasn’t just dominant. He was also economical. In a close game, after a weekend where the bullpen was taxed and the Yankees lost closer Luke Weaver for several weeks, Rodón made it through six having thrown only 70 pitches.
The Yanks finally broke through against Bibee in the fifth. First, the returning Jazz Chisholm, Jr. broke up Bibee’s no-hitter with a one-out single to left. J.C. Escarra, starting at catcher in place of Austin Wells, walked to advance Chisholm. From there, DJ LeMahieu came through. His single plated Chisholm, got the Yanks off the schneid, and gave them a 1-0 lead.
Trent Grisham then reached on an error to load the bases, but Ben Rice grounded out to end the scoring threat at just one run tallied.
In the most predictable turn of events ever, it was Ramírez who snapped two of Rodón’s streaks. Leading off the seventh, he was the first hitter to reach since … he did in the first. And when he scored on a David Fry single after stealing second (again), he snapped Rodón’s run of 20 scoreless innings in a row.
Rodón escaped with no further damage, thanks to an assist by a Cleveland TOOTBLAN. Grisham flubbed a Gabriel Arias liner to center that allowed Fry to advance to third but Arias got greedy trying to advance to second and Grisham gunned him down. Rodón walked Will Wilson to put a second runner on but induced a harmless fly ball to get through the seventh and end his start.
Los’ final line: 7 IP, 5 H, 1 BB, 1 ER, 8 K. The outing lowered his ERA to a sparkling 2.49, maintaining the 1.29 ERA mark since mid-April as well. That’ll do! Carlos has been outstanding of late. And tonight was no different.
Bibee came back out for the home seventh. And the man who recorded the Yanks’ first hit of the night greeted him with the Yanks’ biggest hit of the night. Chisholm unloaded on a four-seam fastball to right field. The 358-foot liner would only have been a home run in two parks, but Yankee Stadium (and its dimensional doppelganger in Tampa) happened to be one of them.
Not to be outdone, Anthony Volpe decided to get in on the action. Volpe’s seventh dinger of the season marked the fifth time this season the Yankees have gone back-to-back. All of a sudden, New York sported a two-run lead. And Volpe’s was no wall-scraper. Only Camden Yards would have contained his solo shot.
Mark Leiter, Jr. was the first man out of the ‘pen for the Yanks. After getting the first out of the inning, MLJ proceeded to commit a cardinal sin, one exacerbated by the fact Ramírez loomed two batters away. He walked Steven Kwan. Leiter managed to get a line drive to Grisham for the second out, but Ramírez strode to the dish representing the tying run. Leiter was up to the task though and got Ramírez to harmlessly roll over to LeMahieu. Crisis averted.
After a scoreless Yankee eighth, it was Devin Williams time. With Weaver out, it behooves Williams to rediscover his closer mojo. Tonight, he needed to hold a two-run lead facing the heart of the Cleveland lineup, though Ramírez was out of the picture.
Carlos Santana made Williams work, fouling off pitches before doubling on the 10th pitch of the at-bat with one out. From there, Williams whiffed Arias. Alas, pinch-hitter Daniel Schneemann poked a seeing-eye single through the right side to make it 3-2. Volpe’s homer loomed large. Luckily, on his 30th pitch of the night, Williams retired Bo Naylor on a fly to Bellinger to finish the win.
It wasn’t a clean outing for Williams by any means. It feels like anytime he doesn’t go 1-2-3 fans are understandably going to get a bit uncomfortable, given his struggles to start the season. But a win is a win.
Join us tomorrow night for the second game of this three-game set. Clarke Schmidt takes the ball for the Yankees with first pitch at 7:05 pm EDT. Tomorrow’s game is on Amazon Prime in local markets, so plan accordingly.