Yankees win ALCS Game 1 2024

NEW YORK – There was a debate within the Yankees’ hierarchy about handing the ball to Carlos Rodón for Monday’s Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, with some pause stemming from how quickly his first playoff start in pinstripes had unraveled in the previous round.

The left-hander promised that he would better channel his energy this time, and he delivered in a big way. Rodón fed off the electricity of a chilly postseason atmosphere, striking out nine over six strong innings as the Yankees defeated the Guardians, 5-2, on Monday evening at Yankee Stadium.

Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton launched homers as the Yankees claimed the opener. In all best-of-seven postseason series, teams winning Game 1 have gone on to take the series 123 of 191 times (64%). In series under the current 2-3-2 format, teams winning Game 1 at home have gone on to take the series 66 of 99 times (67%).

“He’s just great. When you see a guy like that, it’s one of our guys. I feel like we have five aces,” Soto said of Rodón on the field postgame. “These guys show up day-in and day-out. He threw the ball well today. It was an incredible job by him. He was keeping guys off-balance. We can’t ask for more than that.”

After being unable to complete four innings in his ALDS Game 2 start against the Royals, Rodón said that he studied how Gerrit Cole maintained his composure in ALDS Game 4, remarking that the ace right-hander looked “like a robot” until his final inning. That provided a template that Rodón aimed to emulate.

Rodón’s 25 swings and misses tied for the fourth-most in a postseason game since pitch tracking began in 2008. Cleveland managed just three hits off Rodón, who walked none and was dented only for a solo homer, by Brayan Rocchio in the sixth inning.

Soto hit his first homer of this postseason, a third-inning shot off Alex Cobb, who was charged with three runs and five hits over 2 2/3 innings. Joey Cantillo fired four wild pitches, two of which came in the third inning and allowed runs to score, with Aaron Judge and Stanton trotting home.

“I was just locked in on that pitch,” Soto said of his homer. “He showed me the pitch three times, so I thought he wanted to get that pitch and land it, and I was ready for it. I just was ready and tried to make hard contact, and thankfully it went the right way.”

Judge lifted a fourth-inning sacrifice fly before Stanton sent his second homer of this postseason into the visitors’ bullpen, a seventh-inning shot off Erik Sabrowski.