MILWAUKEE — The biggest Yankees workhorse over the past two seasons is ready to get back in the saddle.
Nearly seven months after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his left elbow to remove loose bodies and shave down a bone spur, Carlos Rodón is set to return from the injured list Sunday to make his season debut against the Brewers at American Family Field.
The left-hander will do so with an unfamiliar feeling: no longer pitching through discomfort.
Across an MLB-high 33 starts last season, and even for some time before then, Rodón had limited range of motion with his left arm — making everyday tasks like buttoning his shirt difficult — which he had learned to pitch through, and pitch well. He posted a 3.09 ERA with 203 strikeouts across 195 ¹/₃ innings and finished sixth in the American League Cy Young voting.
Now, after spending much of his rehab process rediscovering how to harness the extended range of motion that he was not used to, Rodón is about to find out how it plays on a big league mound.
“I just want to go out there and compete,” Rodón said Saturday. “I know I can still do this.”
After right hamstring tightness in late March slightly delayed his buildup, the 33-year-old made three rehab starts, getting up to 83 pitches and 6 ¹/₃ innings Tuesday with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He will likely be limited to a pitch count around that same range Sunday as the Yankees ease him back in.
“This being probably my third time through a lengthy rehab process, I have some experience, although most people don’t want to really say that,” Rodón said. “Just [leaning] back on those times and working on the craft and trying to get back here and help the team.”
Aaron Boone acknowledged that Rodón, who admitted not being good at staying patient, would have liked to be back pitching in the big leagues a few turns sooner. But the manager is looking forward to getting him back Sunday.
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“Feel like he’s had a good couple months, even in and around the hamstring that didn’t trip him up too much,” Boone said.
Rodón’s return gets the Yankees one step closer to having their full rotation, with Gerrit Cole possibly joining it by the end of the month after he makes two or three more rehab starts in his own comeback from Tommy John surgery.
The Yankees rotation has gotten off to a terrific start without the two veterans, entering Saturday with a 3.09 ERA (the second best mark in the majors, trailing only the Dodgers’ 2.95) and a 4.9 fWAR (which was the best in the majors). Much of that has been thanks to Max Fried and Cam Schlittler, though Will Warren and Ryan Weathers have been strong in their own rights, with the rotation providing the backbone for the AL-best 26-13 record coming into Saturday.
“They’ve been impeccable,” Rodón said.
But adding Rodón — whose 370 ¹/₃ innings from 2024-2025 were the fifth most in the majors and 3.50 ERA the 20th best during that span — into the mix has the potential to make the Yankees even better.
In his first few starts back, Rodón’s command and velocity will bear watching. He only walked three batters in 16 innings during his rehab process, though he acknowledged at various points of his comeback that he was still relearning his arm path after compensating for the limited range of motion in recent years.
As for the velocity, part of the reason why Rodón finally underwent the surgery in October was because his four-seam fastball velocity took a fairly significant step down last season — averaging 94.1 mph compared to 95.4 mph in 2024. In his final rehab start Tuesday, Rodón’s four-seamer averaged 93.3 mph, though that number is expected to tick up a bit when he gets the adrenaline back of pitching in the major leagues.
Just how much that accounts for in miles per hour remains to be seen, but after staying patient throughout a lengthy rehab process, Rodón is champing at the bit to find out.
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