David Lennon: Yankees' Elmer Rodriguez fails fill-in test as offense struggles
New York Yankees pitcher Elmer Rodriguez during the game against the Cincinnati Reds at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Ed Murray
Not that the Yankees are overconfident here in late June, but you get the sense they took a glance around the American League this week, saw the collection of stooges and thought this might be an opportune chance to give their rotation a breather.
That strategy is pretty much why rookie Elmer Rodriguez was on the mound Sunday rather than scheduled starter Gerrit Cole. The last-minute switch — apparently 48 hours in the making — was as good a reason as any why the Yankees lost to the Reds, 4-1, in the series finale at the Stadium.
The official explanation, as provided by manager Aaron Boone, had to do with the Yankees playing 16 games in 16 days, an exhausting stretch — albeit against soft competition — that would be taxing for a rotation that already has piled up innings at a rapid rate.
That mostly applies to Cam Schlittler, whose 95 innings are third-most in the majors, and Ryan Weathers (80 2⁄3 innings), as those two are on pace to make the biggest jumps in workload from a year ago.
As far as Cole goes, he just got back, relatively speaking, from Tommy John surgery and hasn’t really looked like a guy needing additional rest. He’s 2-1 with a 2.57 ERA in five starts, with a grand total of 28 innings under his belt, and no doubt is anxious to make up for all that lost time.
Cole also is a stickler for routine, but he played the good soldier Sunday morning when asked if he would have preferred to stay on schedule.
“That’s a fair point,” he said. “It’s like anything: If you’re on a roll, man, just keep feeding me, you know what I mean? But there are different factors that contribute to when you get to do that or when you don’t get to do that at any given point. It’s really not that big of a deal. It’s more of an emotional thing when guys get in that mode.”
The Yankees choosing to be protective of their crew isn’t the worst idea, especially with Max Fried already five weeks into a stint on the injured list for a bone bruise impacting his left elbow — and he’s nowhere close to returning. But when you swap out a former Cy Young Award winner in Cole for a rookie in Rodriguez, it’s a calculated risk that can blow up in your face, as it did Sunday for the Yankees.
Rodriguez, hustled up from Triple-A Scranton, was one of a few contributing factors. The Yankees (46-30) didn’t help out much by going 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position — leaving them at 0-for-22 with 18 men left on base in the past two games — and also got burned by a questionable no-call on what could’ve been obstruction when Anthony Volpe was picked off first base before Ben Rice’s third-inning homer (more on that later).
But Rodriguez was responsible for delivering the kill-shot with two outs in the fourth when Tyler Stephenson turned on a knee-high fastball and hit a three-run homer.
“I felt good from the start,” said Rodriguez, who had retired seven of eight before a leadoff walk in the fourth. “Attacking guys, thought I was executing well. Besides that inning, when I fell behind a little bit and then the home run kind of sucks. It’s just that one pitch, throwing it not where it was supposed to go, and they did the damage there.”
The Reds (37-39) didn’t figure to put up much resistance this weekend. They had lost five straight series before taking two of three from the Mets earlier in the week, and Schlittler’s 13-strikeout gem in Friday’s opener immediately put Cincinnati back on its heels.
Then the AL kingpin Yankees we’ve come to know went AWOL for two days. They allowed four unearned runs in a sloppy 10-2 loss on Saturday and followed that up with an even more frustrating afternoon.
Volpe displayed some of that annoyance on an attempted pickoff after his leadoff walk in the third. He initially was called safe, but the call was overturned on review, with a visibly agitated Volpe yelling at the huddled umpires as they waited for MLB headquarters to check back.
Boone even came out to lightly restrain Volpe, who insisted that first baseman Sal Stewart had blocked the base with his back foot.
“I just had nowhere to go,” Volpe said. “Obviously, for me at shortstop, receiving throws, we’re trying to be spot-on with that. That rule’s not coming from us — it’s coming from the league.”
What further infuriated Volpe was first-base ump Brian O’Nora essentially dismissing him by saying he didn’t want to watch the replay on the scoreboard video. Five pitches after Volpe finally left the field, Rice launched his 22nd homer into the rightfield seats.
Would Sunday have gone any differently if the Yankees had been up 2-0? Maybe not. They still played suspect defense for a second straight game — Jasson Dominguez does not appear reliable in rightfield — and the Yankees mustered only four singles after Rice’s homer (they also wasted six stolen bases).
But Rodriguez is no Cole, either. And the rest of the Yankees can’t take the day off when the regular front-line starters do.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
