TORONTO — In a span of three starts, Carlos Rodon’s ERA has inflated from 2.93 to 4.42, and that is not just the work of the Canadian exchange rate.
Neither is the Yankees going from 49-21 to 52-31 in just over two weeks.
But one of the key components fueling their recent skid has been their starting pitching falling off, which continued Thursday night at Rogers Centre.
The Blue Jays became the latest team to pounce on Rodon and his fastball, jumping out to an eight-run lead and handing the Yankees their season-high fourth straight loss, 9-2.
Coming off a Subway Series in which the Mets rocked Gerrit Cole and Luis Gil, Rodon could not stop the bleeding.
George Springer crushed a pair of three-run home runs off Rodon fastballs before the left-hander could record a fifth out.
The second one was a 434-foot shot on a fastball down the middle, putting the Yankees in an early 8-0 hole that their mostly scuffling lineup could not dig its way out of.
Rodon eventually settled in to last five innings, but he gave up eight runs on 10 hits after giving up eight runs on 11 hits against the Braves his last time out.
Over his last three starts, he has gotten clobbered for 21 runs (20 earned) on 28 hits across 13 ²/₃ innings, offering shades of the 2023 Rodon that he had spent his first 14 starts of the season trying to scrub from the memory bank.
Rodon’s recent struggles are just part of the Yankees’ sudden problem.
Through June 14, their rotation had the lowest ERA in the majors at 2.77 across its first 72 games of the season.
In the Yankees’ 11 games since, their starters have combined to post an 8.65 ERA, allowing 50 earned runs in 52 innings.
Not coincidentally, the Yankees have now lost 10 of their last 13 games.
Before Thursday, they had been one of the last four teams left in the majors that had not lost four straight games this season, but the Blue Jays (37-43) changed that.
Before Springer went deep for the first time, the Blue Jays got the rally going with some well-placed hits.
Bo Bichette led off with a ground ball smoked through the left side before Rodon hit former teammate Isiah Kiner-Falefa on the foot with a 1-2 slider — the first of two times he did that on the night.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. followed by blooping a broken-bat double just past first base to make it 1-0.
Justin Turner then poked a squibber down the first-base line that Ben Rice tried to let go foul.
But the ball stayed fair and bounced off the bag, allowing Turner to reach safely on an RBI single that summed up the Yankees’ frustrations of late.
Springer came up next and turned on a 1-2 fastball that caught too much of the inside part of the plate to make it 5-0 five batters into the inning.
After Springer’s second three-run shot of the night in the second inning, Rodon went on to retire 12 of the final 15 batters he faced.
Aaron Boone went to the mound with two runners on and one out in the fifth inning, but Rodon talked his way into staying in the game.
During that conversation, reliever Phil Bickford had begun to run in from the right-field bullpen, but quickly had to reverse course when Boone left the mound without signaling for him.
The Yankees’ only source of offense on the night against Jose Berrios was Trent Grisham’s two-run home run in the fifth inning.
NEWS CREDIT
