A blast from Juan Soto, erratic pitching from the Cleveland Guardians, and a strong outing from Carlos Rodon has the Yankees starting their 2024 ALCS on the right foot with a 5-2 victory on Monday night in the Bronx.
The favored Yankees now sit three wins away from their first World Series appearance since 2009 with Game 2 set for Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium.
Following a disappointing 3.2-inning outing in the ALDS against the Kansas City Royals, Rodon bounced back in a big way on Monday night, allowing just one run on three hits in six innings of work with nine strikeouts and one walk.
The 25 swings and misses that he generated were the most by a Yankees pitcher in a postseason game since the stat began getting tracked in 2008.
After early missed opportunities in the first two innings, New York broke through in the third inning off Guardians starter Alex Cobb when Soto lifted his first postseason home run with the Yankees — a 2-1 sinker that stayed up in the zone that the lefty managed to pull into the bullpens of right-center field.
Wild Guardians pitching allowed for the Yankees to put up a crooked number in the third. Cobb walked Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Anthony Volpe to load the bases with two outs, which brought an end to the Cleveland stater’s night. Reliever Joey Cantillo proceeded to throw a pair of wild pitches, which scored two more to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead.
Cantillo’s issues were far from over, though. In the fourth, he walked Gleyber Torres and uncorked two more wild pitches to advance the Yankees’ second baseman to third. Judge drove him home with a sacrifice fly to make it a 4-0 game.
Rodon cruised with the lead, retiring 11 straight between the second and fifth innings. However, Brayan Rocchio led off the sixth with a solo home run to get Cleveland on the board — though Rodon set the next three Guardians aside to finish his night on a strong note.
Giancarlo Stanton temporarily restored the Yankees’ four-run lead in the bottom of the seventh when he launched a 439-foot blast off reliever Erik Sabrowski for his second round-tripper of the postseason.
Steven Kwan made it 5-2 with an RBI single off reliever Tim Hill in the eighth.
