From Bryan Hoch:
It was a few days ago that Juan Soto became a topic of conversation, as he frequently is, around the Yankees’ clubhouse. His hat turned backward, cutoff T-shirt on and bat in hand for another session in the cage, the superstar is impossible to overlook.
Wondering aloud, Carlos Rodón had offered this thought: “What do you think it feels like to be Juan Soto?”
“Is it like when you’re in high school and you’re hitting .450?” Rodón said. “Or you’re in college and it’s pretty easy to hit .350 with a bunch of homers? I don’t know. It’s still a challenge, right? But he just makes it look easy.”
Soto sure did once again on Monday, recording his fourth multihomer game of the season to support Rodón’s winning effort in a 9-1 victory over the Rays at Yankee Stadium. The All-Star hit two of his team’s five homers, hooking a solo drive around the right-field foul pole in the seventh inning, then mashing a three-run laser in the eighth.
Historically, Juan Soto has been known as a streaky hitter. He had a terrible start to the season last year, and ended up with great numbers. Well, I dunno, man, I know he actually HAS had a mini-slump at one point this season earlier in the month, but for the most part, watching this guy hit, how the fuck does he ever slump? His knowledge of the strike zone is just breathtaking. He’s SUCH a good hitter.
But obviously, the bigger story with this game was Carlos Rodon looking like the Carlos Rodon of 2021-22. It could legitimately be a case of the guy physically improving, or perhaps he actually listened to Blake (Rodon famously had that stint where his fastball was crushed in the first inning three starts in a row, and he kept saying, “Maybe I won’t try to establish my fastball early,” and yet KEPT TRYING TO ESTABLISH HIS FASTBALL EARLY). I don’t know, all I DO know is that even a ROUGH approximation of his performance today would be transformative for the Yankees. This is the thing with pitchers with stuff like Rodon’s – you can’t teach stuff like this. If you’re even SLIGHTLY not a moron, you can get swing and misses constantly with stuff like this. Rodon is a moron (and, again, I think he is physically diminished from his peak), so he rarely does, but even when he was having good results early in the season, he didn’t get swings and misses like this. He just got lucky that his stuff was good enough to get lucky results on BABIP. Here? This was just outstanding pitching.
In other news, DJ LeMahieu actually hit a home run! Pigs can fly. It’s at least POSSIBLE, by the way, that his neck injury earlier in the month fucked him up again, as he certainly seems like the type of guy who takes FOREVER to recover from any injury whatsoever. He’s probably just washed, but, hey, at least it’s a thought!
By the way, why in the world didn’t Holmes get an inning today? We’re seriously just going to let the guy fucking stew on his last outing?
The featured image is one of Rodon’s excellent swings and misses from the game. I’d have done a spotlight on him leaving the game, but he always looks angry, even when he just pitched seven one-run innings with 10 ks.
I’m taking my kids to their first baseball game tonight. I hope they like it. Hartford Yard Goats. Hope it doesn’t rain…
Fantastic!
Have fun!
I still haven’t been to a game this year, enjoy!
another rodon hit-job, huh?
paxton as a reliever?
If you think it would ratchet the MPH on his fastball up (which it could), then maybe?He’s currently just in the midst of all of the really bad trends (strikeouts down, walks up, hard hit contact way up).
I bet he gets offers to start elsewhere, though.
Longest ground ball of the year.
Congratulations, TPDJLM.
Obviously, we know it happens. But I wonder to what extent industrial espionage happens within MLB FOs.
Does Cash have a roster of moles in all 29 other FOs to get good intel on trade/FA plans?
If not, why not? A little Yankee bribe money to cultivate assets seems like a no-brainer.
And if it’s widely known, do the Yankees employ counterspy measures? Like when China liquidated all our CIA assets a few years ago crippling our intelligence efforts, is Sabean out there quietly feeding disinfo to low-level quants? Or straight up merking them and dumping them in the Harlem River? Or worse, gifting them to the A’s?
Per Morosi Yankees are interested in Chad Greene but per RAB he’s owed $10M next year and has by far the lowest K and whiff rates of his career.
Why the heck would they want Chad Green?
No clue
To give up more HR’s to the opposition #9 hitters. There are records to be broken here, people.
The lefty destroyers in tonight.
Jones DH lead off
Davis 1B 4th
Narvaez catching 8th
Oh, for f*’s sake.
Both Jones AND Davis. Two guys with no business being on the team at all.
Why does Boone hate the idea of having a starter other than Cole win games?
Boone strikes again!
How can they win if the people running the show WANT to lose?
My brother said last year that Cashman is a saboteur.
Very impressive outing by Rodon, and I’d love to believe it meaningful.
I think we’re all at the point where we’d need to see another outing or two in the same ballpark before we started taking it seriously.
At least he has some past history indicating it’s a possibility.
Cortes, Stroman and Rodon lined up for Boston. Rodon may be pitching to avoid the sweep at Fenway on ESPN.
Aaron Boone said Jasson Domínguez hit live BP yesterday. He’s expected to be playing in games this coming week. #Yankees
Good news until the next injury.
If he gets healthy, can you imagine infusing the lineup with him, Stanton and a trade acquisition at the same time around August 1st? WOW.
Or they trade him for Skubal.
I’m not saying he’s untouchable, of course, but I think he’s about as close to untouchable as you get. Jones, on the other hand, I could see them dealing for a top guy. There was talk of Judge for Sale…man, can you imagine how that would have worked out?
Jasson by himself – really, that’s a big deal. If Rice or Volpe shows something, it becomes a huge deal. Hell, Oswaldo’s hitting suddenly like he did in the first few weeks of the season (no, not reading anything into that)…
But…
…what to expect from Stanton and whether they’ll actually get anything that impresses us – no idea. None at all.
Damn – 6 of their 9 hitters are OPSing over 790.