Dominant Pitching Keys Sweep of Angels

The Yankees won their seventh consecutive series and this time it was a clean three-game sweep of the Angels, accomplished due to some more tremendous pitching as Los Angeles scored only three runs. And the best performance came Tuesday from Carlos Rodon. Lets get to it. 

Your annual reminder to please take a minute or so to click the picture of that baseball below and set up your free account at my new Mighty Networks site called The Ballpark. If you haven’t already, you’ve missed all of the Pinstripe Past Box Score Briefs, and Battling Bronx Bombers content, plus the in-game chats we’ve had which will resume once they’re back playing at normal hours of the day. Reminder, it’s still FREE.

For the first season and a half of his Yankees’ tenure, Carlos Rodon’s six-year $162 million contract seemed destined to become one of the worst deals of Brian Cashman’s career.

But right now it’s starting to look like a bargain as Rodon continued his remarkable renaissance in 2025 with seven dominant innings Tuesday night while most of us were sleeping.

“He’s been pretty lights out,” Aaron Boone said after the 3-2 victory, the middle game of the Yankees’ sweep of the Angels. “I think it was just another outstanding outing. It’s fun to watch him do it.”

Fun was the last word any of us - except for the ever-optimistic Boone - were using to describe the start of Rodon’s contract with the Yankees. He missed the first half of 2023 with an injury, then pitched putridly in the 14 starts he made that season, finishing with a 6.85 ERA and a 1.446 WHIP, both the worst figures of his career.

“I was frustrated, and I showed it,’’ Rodon said, specifically recalling the time he walked off the same mound in Anaheim in 2023 after giving up six earned runs in a loss to the Angels, then being booed by all the Yankees fans who were there before exacerbating the situation by blowing them a mock kiss.

Last year, there was a little more frustration as he made 20 starts before the All-Star break and while he was better than 2023, his ERA was still 4.63 because there were too many times where he’d be going along fine and then he’d serve up a killer home run. In fact, he gave up 20 homers in those 20 games.

Here’s where the story begins to turn, though. After the All-Star break, something clicked and he became the guy riding shotgun next to Gerrit Cole that the Yankees needed down the stretch as he made 12 starts and had a 2.91 ERA, though unfortunately, his struggles returned in the postseason and he had a 5.61 ERA in four starts.

So, what the hell were we supposed to make of Rodon heading into 2025? I know I was expecting more of the same inconsistency that had plagued him those first two years, but he has flashed all of the doubters a proverbial middle finger across his first 12 starts this season. After his seven shutout innings Tuesday, during which he allowed just five hits with no walks and 10 strikeouts, Rodon’s ERA is down to 2.60.

If you drill down a little deeper, you remember that after a decent first start against the Brewers, his next three were the opposite of decent and the same old questions about his viability were being raised. But in his last eight he has shushed everyone with a 1.27 ERA, his lowest ERA over any eight-game span within a season in his career. In that stretch he has 62 strikeouts and just 14 walks, and only three balls have left the yard.

“I just have a good understanding of what I want to do out there and so do the catchers,” Rodon said. “Defensively we’ve been great. Mostly, it’s just the confidence, the confidence in what I’m doing out there.”

Rodon got out of a first and second, one-out jam in the third by striking out Yoan Moncada and Taylor Ward, then helped himself by making a spectacular fielding play for the final out in the fourth inning. Jo Adell hit a tapper between the mound and third and Rodon fielded it, pivoted and pulled off a Derek Jeter jump throw to nail Adell by inches, one of the best plays you’ll ever see by a pitcher.

Anthony Volpe said afterward it was a “lefty Jeter” and DJ LeMahieu said, “I didn’t see that one coming, to be honest with you. He’s an athletic guy, though. That was pretty impressive.”

In the seventh, Adell hit a two-out double and Boone came to the mound and it seemed his night was done. Instead, Boone let him stay in and he struck out Chris Taylor on his season-high 105th pitch.

“They hit a couple balls hard off him in that seventh inning,” Boone said. “He didn’t say, ‘I got to do more.’ (He said), ‘I just got to make my pitches here to finish off this outing.’”

In 2023, and probably in 2024, Boone would not have given him the chance, but this is a different Rodon in 2025.

May 26: Yankees 5, Angels 1

➤ The night didn’t start well as Zach Neto hit Ryan Yarbrough’s sixth pitch of the game 444 feet to dead center for a quick 1-0 Angels lead, the one and only lead the Angels would have in the series. Meanwhile, the Yankees went nine up, nine down at the hands of rookie Jack Kochanowicz and it was smelling very similar to the comatose loss to the Rockies last Friday. However, things changed in a hurry in the fourth inning, and Yarbrough bounced back from that home run to pitch magnificently.

➤ Singles by Ben Rice, Trent Grisham and Aaron Judge loaded the bases to start the fourth and Cody Bellinger forced in a run with a walk. After Jasson Dominguez struck out, Anthony Volpe hit a screamer to right-center on an 0-2 pitch for a bases-clearing double and just like that it was 4-1. By night’s end, nine of his last 16 hits had gone for extra bases, and for all the bitching we do about him - usually it feels warranted - his RBI count rose to 31. The only other run came in the eighth when Judge walked an eventually scored on an Austin Wells sacrifice fly.

➤ Meanwhile, Yarbrough’s assortment of junk, delivered at varying arm angles and speeds, baffled the Angels as he struck out seven and gave up just one other hit and a walk across six innings, and the hit was dubious because it should have been scored an error on Rice. Yarbrough has been a revelation for the rotation as he started four games in May and pitched to a 2.25 ERA and a 0.850 WHIP. I mean, that’s Gerrit Cole-type numbers.

➤ The bullpen covered the final nine outs as Yerry De los Santos went 1.1 innings and he lowered his ERA to 1.64, another pleasant surprise this season. Mark Leiter and Luke Weaver closed it out, though Weaver allowed two men to reach.

What they said in Monday’s clubhouse

• Yarbrough: “I’ve never been the guy to blow up a radar gun. Hearing feedback from guys, it’s just a different look, it’s a little unorthodox, not something they’re used to seeing every day.”

• Volpe: “Every night we’re going out with confidence and confidence in each other,” Volpe said. “We just feel really good about the brand of baseball we’re playing.”

• Boone on the offense: “We want to be good situationally. We want to be situationally solid and that’s one of those areas. Especially now, in the game where the strikeout is so prevalent, especially with the arms you’re consistently seeing, to be able to cash in those runs with less than two outs without getting a hit, hopefully that’s something that continues for us.”

May 27: Yankees 3, Angels 2

➤ Thankfully, the majority of us were sleeping when Devin Williams very nearly ruined all the great work Rodon did in this game. With Weaver getting a night off, Williams was called on to pitch the ninth inning in a save situation for the first time since April 25 when he blew the game and lost to Toronto, and Boone yanked him out of the closer’s role. Since then, Williams had pitched 11 times and in 10 of those appearances he did not allow a run. Not the case Tuesday.

➤ After Jonathan Loaisiga needed just 12 pitches in a 1-2-3 eighth, Williams came on and Moncada crushed a home run on his third pitch. Ward singled and after getting an out, Luis Rengifo singled so the tying runs were on base. However, Adell hit into a run-scoring fielders’ choice, then Logan O’Hoppe bailed Williams out by swinging at a 3-0 pitch and fouling out to Oswald Peraza at third to end what was certainly an ugly, agita-producing save. “I didn’t think he’d be swinging there,’’ said Williams.

➤ Tyler Anderson frustrated the Yankees for 3.2 scoreless innings before Rice hit a long homer to right for a 1-0 lead. That gave Rice 23 RBI for the season, matching his total from 2024.

➤ In the sixth, Bellinger hit a fly to deep left-center and after running a long way, Angels center fielder Matthew Lugo dropped the ball for an error, and because Bellinger was hustling out of the box he wound up with a triple. Volpe then hit a liner up the middle and it looked like Lugo could have caught it, but it fell in front of him for an RBI single.

➤ Peraza then provided the run that ended up being pretty meaningful when he homered to left-center off reliever Hector Neris that made it 3-0 in the seventh.

➤ The Yankees’ defense was excellent. In addition to Rodon’s great play, Grisham made a diving catch in the seventh, and on the Adell grounder in the ninth that produced a run, Volpe made an excellent pick, and then LeMahieu stretched like a first baseman and held the bag to reel in Volpe’s rushed and off-target throw, a play that may have saved the game.

What they said in Tuesday’s clubhouse

• Williams on his struggle: “I was kind of battling myself a little bit, they were jumping on me early a few times there. You just keep going,” Williams said. “The game’s not over, we didn’t lose yet, so it’s pretty simple. At the end of the day, we won. That’s all that matters.”

• Boone on Williams: “Not worried about him. In the end, you bend and don’t break, there’s a lot you take away from that outing. The reality is he’s throwing the ball really well. They put a couple good swings on him tonight, but that’s part of it.”

May 28: Yankees 1, Angels 0

➤ The Yankees completed the sweep with yet another outstanding night from their starter, this time Clarke Schmidt, and then a lockdown from a very short bullpen which had to use the B-listers with Boone unwilling to use Weaver, Williams or Loaisiga. That’s why this was a great win. Boone essentially was willing to punt the game because he knew he needed everyone well rested for the weekend against the Dodgers, but the Yankees still stole the victory and are now a season-high 15 games over .500. That’s 16 wins in the last 20, including five of six so far on this West coast trip, and a season-best seven-game lead in the AL East over the Rays.

➤ Schmidt went six innings and allowed just four hits and a walk, meaning that in these three games, the Yankees got 19 innings from their starters and just one run allowed on 11 hits and two walks. And Max Fried didn’t pitch in the series. In the last 39 games, the rotation ERA is an MLB-best 2.61.

➤ Schmidt started a little slow as he gave up two hits in the first but was helped by a double play turned nicely by Volpe and LeMahieu, and in the second inning, a single and a walk put men on first and second with no outs, but two strikeouts and a groundout left those two men stranded. From there, only one man reached base for the Angels in Schmidt’s last four innings.

➤ First out of the bullpen was Ian Hamilton and after an easy seventh, trouble brewed in the eighth when Chris Taylor singled and moved to second on a sacrifice. Hamilton got Neto on a fly ball, then Tim Hill came in to pitch to the lefty-swinging Nolan Schanuel and he induced a groundout to second. Leiter took the ninth and after a two-out walk, he caught a huge break when he struck out O’Hoppe on a pitch that was not a strike, ballgame over. For Leiter, it seems hard to believe, but he has not allowed a run in 23 of his 26 appearances this year.

➤ The Yankees had great chances in the first and second innings to take control early but they loaded the bases in each and scored only one run, but that turned out to be all they needed.

➤ In the first, Goldschmidt led off with a double and after two walks (one intentional to Judge), Volpe delivered a sacrifice fly. Dominguez re-loaded the bases with a single, but LeMahieu killed the threat by flying out on the first pitch he saw, just a terrible job when Angels starter Yusei Kikuchi was clearly laboring. Then in the second, after Judge had been intentionally walked for the second time, Bellinger popped out to leave them loaded again. In those two innings Kikuchi gave up four hits and four walks, but allowed just one run. Pretty unbelievably frustrating for the Yankees, though it didn’t matter in the end.

➤ This was the Yankees third 1-0 win this season. They had that many between 2022 and 2024 combined.

What they said in Wednesday’s clubhouse

• Escarra on the final pitch: “Definitely a ball, way out there. That’s what we work on every day, to help our pitchers and steal strikes. That one was really special, because it was to win a ballgame.”

• Leiter: “A 1-0 game is always intense. Everybody else did their job, it’s my turn to come in and do my job. Get a little more emotion coming out of that last out, trying to hold it together throughout the game and not riding the emotion of the game. But definitely feels good once you get that last out. I’ve been working on mechanics, finding a little bit of a different focus with how to generate velocity. It definitely helps if your stuff gets better. It gives you a little uptick.”

• Schmidt: “Obviously we’re playing really good baseball right now and the energy in the clubhouse is great.

• Boone: “Anytime you get a sweep, that’s not easy to do in this league. So there’s that excitement, knowing we’re going into an off day, we’re not going far. You kind of look to those off days and when you get a sweep into an off day and you do it on a night when you’re staying away from a few guys, some other guys really stepped up in some big roles.”

Well, here’s the series that the YES Network must hate because they don’t get to broadcast any of the games. Apple, FOX and ESPN get the three games at Dodger Stadium in the World Series rematch between the Yankees and Dodgers.

Los Angeles was supposed to go 162-0 this season after spending its latest $1 billion on free agents, but while a 34-21 record is nothing to sniff at, it’s actually a little disappointing considering the expectations. They went 3-3 on a trip to play the Mets and Guardians, losing 7-4 on Wednesday in Cleveland.

Here are some of the top Dodgers to watch:

➤ DH Shohei Ohtani: Who cares if he’s not yet pitching, he leads MLB with 20 home runs and his 1.042 OPS ranks third.

➤ 1B Freddie Freeman: He leads the NL with a .359 average and a 1.044 OPS of 1.044, both are second in MLB only the Judge, and he has 14 doubles, nine homers and 36 RBI.

➤ C Will Smith: His .456 on-base leads the NL, and he has a .975 OPS which is incredible for a catcher.

➤ SS Mookie Betts: He’s playing a decent SS, but he’s not the same hitter he once was, but he does have 31 RBI and a .338 on-base.

➤ RF Teoscar Hernandez: He has 10 homers and leads the team with 42 RBI.

The pitching matchups are scheduled to be:

• Friday, 10:10, Apple-TV: Max Fried (1.29 ERA) vs. Tony Gonsolin (4.68) who went 16-1 with a 2.14 ERA in 2022 but now is trying to find a groove after missing all of 2024 due to Tommy John surgery.

• Saturday, 7:15, FOX: Will Warren (4.09) vs. Landon Knack (5.22) who has filled in with Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki on the injured list.

• Sunday, 7:10, ESPN2: Either Yarbrough or Rodon (TBD) vs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto (1.97) who is now the Dodgers ace as he has a 0.906 WHIP and 3.75 strikeout-to-walk ratio.