Thoughts after Game 1 of the 2024 ALCS

Four wins down, seven to go. The Yankees rode Carlos Rodón’s left arm and timely wild pitches to a 5-2 win over the Guardians in ALCS Game 1 on Monday. They’ll send their ace to the mound with a chance to take a 2-0 series lead Tuesday night. Long way to go and I wouldn't say the Yankees are firing on all cylinders, but things, they are going well. 

Game 2 on Tuesday: RHP Gerrit Cole vs. RHP Tanner Bibee (7:30pm ET on TBS, Max, TruTV)

1. Rodón rewards the Yankees. I didn’t love the decision to start Carlos Rodón in Game 1 because I am an idiot. For real though, the Guardians hit lefties very well during the regular season, especially late in the year, and Rodón is prone to dingers and big innings. With Clarke Schmidt available on normal rest, I would have gone with him, but the Yankees are smarter than me, and Rodón got the ball.

"Gosh, he was good," Aaron Boone said after Game 1. "It just felt like he was in – we talked about how would he take the experience of the first time out (in the ALDS), and I felt like he totally applied all of that. I thought he was just in complete command of himself and of his emotions. Stuff was excellent, had swing and miss."

Rodón’s line: 6 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 9 K, 1 HR (video) on 93 pitches. No. 9 hitter Brayan Rocchio socked the #ObligatoryHomer (I warned you about him), though it was only a solo shot, and the Yankees led 4-0 in the sixth inning at the time. If you’re going to give up a homer, that’s a good homer to give up. Other than that, the Guardians had just one runner reach second base against Rodon, and that was in the first inning after a passed ball. Rodón never allowed a runner to reach third base (like actually stop and stand at third).

I thought Rodón might throw more changeups and curveballs after going fastball/slider heavy in his ALDS start, but nope, he stayed primarily with his top two pitches, and was very effective. He generated 25 swings and misses, the second most by a Yankee this season (Gerrit Cole had 26 against the Rangers on Aug. 10th) and the most by a Yankee in a postseason game since pitch tracking began in 2008. The leaderboard:

1. Carlos Rodón: 25 in 2024 ALCS Game 1
2. Gerrit Cole: 24 in 2020 Wild Card Series Game 1
3. CC Sabathia: 21 in 2009 ALDS Game 1
4. Gerrit Cole: 19 in 2022 ALDS Game 1
5. Several tied with 18

Also, props to Aaron Boone. As soon as Rocchio’s homer landed, Clay Holmes was up in the bullpen, and Boone didn’t try to steal outs with Rodón after he escaped the sixth inning. Holmes came in to start the seventh nice and clean, and to face Lane Thomas, a righty who crushes lefties and had a big ALDS. Dare I say Boone has had a fantastic postseason? He’s pushed the right button an awful lot these five games.

Rodón is a fiery guy and he talked Sunday about needing to control his emotions after letting the Royals game get away, and he did that Monday. There were no roars after strikeouts, nothing like that. Did that contribute to his strong outing? I dunno, maybe, but it was a different vibe. Some guys can pitch with that much emotion and thrive. Others need to rein it in a bit. Either way, Rodón silenced the doubters (i.e. me), and led the Yankees to a Game 1 win.

"The goal was to just stay in control," Rodón said. "Stay in control of what I can do, obviously physically and emotionally. I thought I executed that well tonight."

2. Grindstone baseball. The Yankees beat the Royals in the ALDS because they made nothing easy for Kansas City’s pitchers (and because their pitching was very good, especially the bullpen). They worked long at-bats, fouled away good pitches, and made the Royals work hard for every out. It was winning baseball, and it continued in Game 1 of the ALCS. No pitcher has been safe this postseason.

"I think a lot of them, that's who they are, that's what they're capable of, that's in their DNA," Aaron Boone said about the quality of the at-bats after Game 1. "… We haven't totally broken through offensively, but I feel like the at-bats are where they need to be."

Alex Cobb faced 16 batters, half reached base, and he averaged over four pitches per batter. And that’s with Gleyber Torres putting the first pitch in play twice. The Yankees stranded two runners in both the first and second innings and stranding two runners in the first is getting annoying (three times in five postseason games!), but the third inning made up for it. The generational Juan Soto hit a ball into the bullpen (video), then the Yankees dug in and went to work:

• Aaron Judge: 7-pitch walk

• Austin Wells: 4-pitch strikeout

• Giancarlo Stanton: 4-pitch walk

• Jazz Chisholm Jr: 2-pitch fly out

• Anthony Volpe: 5-pitch walk

• Anthony Rizzo: 4-pitch walk

Four of the six batters after Soto’s homer drew walks and mixed in there were two run-scoring wild pitches. Two! Katie Sharp says the Yankees are the first team to score on multiple wild pitches in a postseason game, and they did it twice in the same inning. Twice in the span of six pitches! Was it 2021 when the Yankees had all those run-scoring wild pitches? The 2021 Yankees MVP returned in ALCS Game 1. (Maybe it was 2022. I forget.)

Statcast rates Bo Naylor as a very strong pitch-framer but only so-so at throwing and blocking. So-so can mean good some days and bad on others, and we saw the bad side of Naylor’s blocking in Game 1. He let four – four! – pitches get by him and every single one contributed to a run crossing the plate. To be clear, all four were scored wild pitches on Joey Cantillo*, but what is this blocking attempt?

Longtime catching coach Jerry Weinstein says Naylor stayed in framing mode too long and didn’t switch to blocking mode in time, hence whatever that was. It wasn’t a one-knee catching stance thing (wild pitches are down, actually). Two runs scored on wild pitches in the third, then Torres advanced to second and third on wild pitches in the fourth, and scored on Aaron Judge's sac fly. A free 90 feet, again and again (and again and again).

* Cantillo’s four wild pitches are the second most ever in a postseason game behind Rick Ankiel’s five in Game 1 of the 2000 NLDS. That game basically ended Ankiel’s pitching career. 

The Yankees walked seven times in Game 1. Seven more times, I should saw. They’re up to 37 strikeouts and 34 walks in five postseason games, which is bonkers. They’re also 15-for-86 (.174) with men on base, so they have not yet turned all those walks and tough at-bats into consistent runs, but homers and run-scoring wild pitches will paper over things. Keep grinding away and good things will happen offensively. They already are happening.

3. Rizzo returns. I should’ve known the Yankees didn’t put Anthony Rizzo on the ALCS roster to not play him. Rizzo was in the Game 1 lineup, starting at first base and batting eighth, two weeks and two days after an errant pitch broke two fingers on his right hand. He felt good during and after workouts over the weekend, he has extra padding in his glove and when he bats, and he’s giving it a go in the ALCS.

“That's all it is. It's just pain. It's temporary, and the 50,000 people in the stands and the adrenaline and what's at stake is going to outweigh any pain I'll be feeling,” Rizzo said before Game 1. “… These games are all compete. You just go out there and compete with whatever you have.”

Considering the layoff, I thought Rizzo looked sharp in Game 1. Laid off two splitters and stroked a single in his first at-bat, took a walk during that third inning rally, then hit the ball in the air his last two times up. Rizzo couldn’t make the play on Brayan Rocchio’s ground ball (85.6 mph exit velocity) in the eighth inning though, which led to Tim Hill’s obstruction call. You need your first baseman to make this play in the late innings in October:

If you’re healthy enough to play, you’re healthy enough to be expected to perform, and that’s a ball Rizzo has to at least keep in front of him. No out there forced Luke Weaver into the game earlier than I would have liked with another game coming Tuesday – Weaver threw 24 pitches to get five outs and had the audacity to walk a batter – but you have to do what you have to do to seal the win. Other than that play, Rizzo looked good in his return.

The Yankees understand Rizzo is no longer a high-end performer, that’s why he hit eighth in Game 1, but they still value his professional at-bats, his defense (that play notwithstanding), and the fact he can handle all this. He won’t scare in October. Rizzo’s not gonna give you that big swing at this point in his career. He does fit the heavy at-bat profile though, and that’s something. Welcome back, Tony.

(Rizzo’s fine, by the way. Aaron Boone said he replaced him for defense in the ninth inning because Rizzo was spent after not playing for more than two weeks. He’ll be in the Game 2 lineup.)

4. Rapid fire thoughts. Nothing to say about the eighth inning obstruction call on Tim Hill (video). That’s textbook obstruction and the runners were placed at the proper bases in my opinion. Weird play. Glad it wasn’t overly costly … October Giancarlo Stanton remains the best Giancarlo Stanton. Big G socked an insurance run solo dinger in the seventh (video). It’s his second homer this postseason and his 13th homer in 32 career postseason games. That’s a 66 homers per 162 games pace. October G will live forever … Juan Soto is now 9-for-13 with a double and three homers in his career against Alex Cobb. That is some serious ownage. “I can't tell you that right now. I bet you he's listening,” Soto joked before the game when asked why he hits Cobb so well … Aaron Judge isn’t hitting much – he struck out with two runners on and no outs in the first inning for the third time this postseason in Game 1 – but he is playing the hell out of center field. He made two great running catches Monday (videos) and had a couple nice ones in the ALDS as well. We didn’t see that much during the regular season. Maybe Judge was holding back a bit to protect his toe/avoid crashing into walls, and is letting it loose in October? … … Nestor Cortes (flexor) will throw another bullpen Wednesday, and if that goes well, he could throw live BP this weekend. He really is trending toward being on the World Series roster, huh? If the Yankees advance, of course. Nestor being healthy-ish is a pleasant surprise. … And finally, nothing quite says AL Central baseball like “pinch-hitter Austin Hedges.” He pinch-flew out to begin the eighth and made the final out in the ninth. Guardians rookie manager Stephen Vogt has a tendency to burn through pinch-hitters and box himself into less desirable matchups at the plate late in the game, I’ve noticed this postseason.