KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Yankees benched the 19-foot-4 slugger.
In the visiting dugout, which was certainly wider than usual, were Aaron Judge (6-foot-7), who was given the first rest of the season, Giancarlo Stanton (6-foot-6), who sat on the bench with Juan Soto as the designated hitter, and Anthony Rizzo (6-foot-3), who was given another day to work on his struggles.
As they have done all season, the Yankees just found a way.
The Yankees replaced their lack of height with small-ball and Carlos Rodon, winning the series opener against the Royals, 4-2, on Monday at Kauffman Stadium.
The Yankees (47-21) have continued to do well when the game has changed, winning 10 of 12 games, 14 of 18 games and 21 of 27 games. They were second in the MLB in home runs, but they turned nine singles into four runs and had a big game without any extra base hits.
Aaron Boone’s team executed three sacrifice bunts and three bunt attempts, two of which were successful, in the first four innings to score runs against the improved Royals, 39-28.
“I’m not expecting to be a bunting or stealing team. It’s not necessarily about personnel,” Boone said after the Yankees tied their season-high with 26 games over .500, “but we have guys who can make those plays. Sometimes you’ve got to do little things on the diamond to win games.”
That was more than enough for Rodon, who kept his no-hitter going through five innings and then allowed just one run in seven innings in one other start, putting a dismal 2023 behind him.
The Yankees quickly got into the bunting print, scoring a run in the top of the first on three singles (by the returning Soto, Gleyber Torres and Alex Verdugo) and advancing DJ LeMahieu to third base.
With one out, the team’s No. 5 batter bunted to send Verdugo home, marking LeMahieu’s first sacrifice bunt since 2022 and his second since 2020.
The bunting show was just getting started. In the fourth inning, LeMahieu singled with one out, then Trent Grisham tried to bunt but was hit in the leg. The next batter, Jamai Jones, bunted successfully and Jose Trevino hit a two-run single to give the Yankees a big lead.
“Stress increases [on the opposing team] “It helps us win games that we’re not winning with hard hitting or that we’re not just winning games where the pitchers are dominant,” Boone said after watching Trevino lay down another sacrifice bunt in the ninth inning.
That was all the points the Yankees were able to score against former Mets reliever Seth Lugo, who had reinvented himself and entered the game with a 9-1 record and a 2.13 ERA, but it was enough for the Yankees, as Rodon is a completely different pitcher than he was the last time he took the mound in Kansas City.
Rodon hadn’t pitched at this stadium since Sept. 29 of last year, when he gave up eight runs and didn’t record an out, a fitting end to a disastrous first season with the Yankees.
“I knew this game was coming,” said Rodon, who lowered his ERA to 2.92 in a redemption season. “It was circled on the calendar and I wanted to come out of here last year and give my team the best chance to win. That incident … I remember it so clearly.”
Through four innings, Rodon allowed just one runner, who was hit by pitch in the second inning and got out on a double play, giving him the minimum on-base percentage.
His no-hitter was spoiled in the fifth inning when Nelson Velazquez singled through the left side, and his shutout attempt was spoiled in the seventh inning when Freddie Firmin hit an RBI single.
But Rodon avoided any further damage, leaving two runners on base in the seventh on a grounder by MJ Melendez and handing the ball off to the bullpen to preserve the lead.
On a night when the Yankees proved they could win in other ways, Rodon proved once again that he is a completely different pitcher than he was last season.
“I tried to forget about it early on, but it’s hard to get that out of your mind,” Rodon said of last season’s brutal loss to Kansas City. “It wasn’t just one start, it was the culmination of the entire 2023 season.”
