Yankees.com: Yanks’ bats can’t back Rodón’s best start in pinstripes

From Bryan Hoch:

One after another, the Yankees made hard right turns back to their dugout on Monday, many grumbling about how difficult it was to pick up the spin on pitches. Their uphill climb wouldn’t get any easier in the ninth inning, with the top of the order challenged by Mason Miller’s triple-digit velocity.

The high-octane closer struck out Anthony Volpe, Juan Soto and Aaron Judge in order, a frustrating conclusion to an afternoon in which offense once again proved difficult to generate. Held to three hits, the Yankees wasted a strong Carlos Rodón effort in a 2-0 loss to the Athletics at Yankee Stadium.

Yeah, it was clear that Sears’ spin rate just BAFFLED the Yankees all day. It wasn’t like Sears had dominating stuff, but he pitched smart, and aggressive, and had great spin rate. Basically, everything you’d LIKE to see from Yankee starters (except, you know, also with plus stuff).

Sears had been on a bit of a hot streak, so it wasn’t like this was some bum dominating them, but it was still very embarrassing, especially as Sears had been averaging a bit under 4 Ks a game, and then struck out 7 Yankees in six innings. The Yankees strike out, that’s a normal part of their approach, but not 7 times in six innings to a non-strikeout pitcher! Just pathetic.

Mason Miller was excellent in the ninth (he struck out Judge on a 102 MPH fastball!), so it’s hard to even begrudge them on that inning. The real problem was every OTHER innings. I can’t even get down on Victor Gonzalez too much. He gave up a home run to a decent hitter. It happens. The offense is the real problem, by far.

Rodon was excellent, but just like his excellent start in Miami, I’d like to see him do this against a real lineup before I get too hyped. He really seemed to be pitching with more confidence knowing the hitters weren’t going to hurt him. That’s NOT, however, how he pitched against Toronto in his last start. So I’d like to see this approach against a good team, and see what happens.

In any event, the story of the 2024 Yankees so far has mostly been, “Hit even a little bit, and win,” so hopefully they start hitting a little bit with more regularity.