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BOSTON — Among the biggest acquisitions the Yankees can make on trade-deadline week is a rolling Carlos Rodon.
The lefty, whose season had been sidetracked by six subpar efforts from the middle of June to the middle of July, has bounced back well in posting his second straight quality start with stuff that looked as strong as it has all season.
Rodon was solid for 6 ¹/₃ innings in which he allowed two runs on five hits and induced whiff after whiff in the Yankees’ 8-2 win over the Red Sox at Fenway Park on Sunday.
The Yankees asked for 10 total innings from their bullpen on Friday and Saturday and did not option or designate any reliever before Sunday’s game, trusting that a reeling unit would not be too relied upon.
Rodon came through.
“Getting an out into the seventh [inning] there — we needed that,” manager Aaron Boone said of Rodon, who allowed no runs outside of the fourth inning. “It was just a big performance following up a strong one obviously his last time.”
After allowing 29 earned runs in 27 innings from June 15-July 14 (and spiking his ERA from 2.93 to 4.63 in the process), Rodon has responded with domination.
He struck out 10 Rays over seven, one-run innings Monday before punching out seven Red Sox and generating 25 swings-and-misses, his most in a game in his year and a half with the Yankees.
The key for Rodon, who arrived in pinstripes as a fastball-slider artist, has been diversifying the arsenal.
On Sunday, it was a changeup whose usage and effectiveness was hiked.
Red Sox batters swung at the pitch 13 times and put two softly hit balls in play.
Nine of those swings were misses.
“The changeup seems like it’s been generating good swing and miss and just keeping the hitters off balance,” said Rodon, whose ERA fell to 4.34.
Using his fastball a bit less — from 49.8 percent on the season to 40 percent of the time Sunday — helped make it a bit less predictable and a bit stronger.
He generated nine whiffs with the weapon Sunday.
“He had a good fastball tonight, good profile, good life to it, getting it to areas,” said Boone, whose rotation otherwise has been struggling. “And then that set up the other stuff that was once again effective for him.”
Rodon’s only blemishes arrived in the fourth inning, when he got ahead in back-to-back counts before throwing a pitch he regretted.
An 0-1 fastball to Rob Refsnyder got too much of the plate and was hammered over the Green Monster.
Connor Wong followed and fell into an 0-2 hole before Rodon’s slider slid across the plate and was blasted for a homer to left-center.
The frame could have been worse, the blasts were followed by a Rafael Devers smash that banged off the Monster and was misplayed into a triple. But with a runner on third and no outs, Rodon bore down: He struck out Tyler O’Neill with a good changeup, got Romy Gonzalez to ground harmlessly to Anthony Volpe and, after a walk, Cedanne Rafaela whiffed at a good slider that almost hit him for strike three.
“To get out of that inning with just two runs, it worked out,” Rodon said. “Went back to attacking again.”
