{"id":685660,"date":"2026-04-29T07:27:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T07:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/685660\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T07:27:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T07:27:34","slug":"yankees-feel-good-about-top-prospect-elmer-rodriguez-ahead-of-mlb-debut-hes-earned-the-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/685660\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees feel good about top prospect Elmer Rodriguez ahead of MLB debut: \u2018He\u2019s earned the opportunity\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the Yankees<\/a> sending Luis Gil<\/a> down following another rough outing on Sunday, it created another opening in their starting rotation.<\/p>\n

Some had thought Carlos Rodon<\/a> could be a possibility the next time through, but they decided to look elsewhere with the lefty still needing two more rehab outings.<\/p>\n

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Instead, it\u2019ll be top prospect Elmer Rodriguez to make his big-league debut.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a guy we view that\u2019s gonna have a long career,\u201d Aaron Boone said<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s coming off a phenomenal year at Double-A and a taste of Triple-A, and has gotten off to a great start there this year — he\u2019s earned the opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel good about him taking the ball and he\u2019s very, very capable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodriguez certainly has gotten off to a terrific start, building off of his two strong Grapefruit League appearances and lone scoreless outing with Puerto Rico at the WBC.<\/p>\n

The talented 22-year-old has pitched to a stellar 1.27 ERA and 0.89 WHIP with 20 strikeouts and just one homer allowed over his first four outings down in Scranton.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s just the preparation,\u201d he told YES Network\u2019s Meredith Marakovitz<\/a>. \u201cJust having that mentality to go out and just compete, have fun, and trust my stuff — I know I have good stuff, I just try to go out and bring the best I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Rodriguez is known for being calm, cool, and collected on the mound he\u2019s expecting some nerves when he toes that big-league rubber for the first time in Wednesday\u2019s series finale.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like they are obviously going to be there,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m excited and happy be here — hopefully I\u2019ll be able to control them and just go out there and have some fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodriguez is expected to take two turns through the rotation before Rodon is ready to return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the Yankees sending Luis Gil down following another rough outing on Sunday, it created another opening in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1797,5,2004,61486,4635,2277,4,1643,142],"class_list":["post-685660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-aaron-boone","tag-baseball","tag-carlos-rodon","tag-elmer-rodriguez","tag-grapefruit-league","tag-luis-gil","tag-mlb","tag-rodriguez","tag-yankees"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116486815306820323","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}