$162,000,000 Yankees star ties unwanted record after latest outing vs Giants

New York Yankees starting pitcher Carlos Rodon's 2025 season has gone from excellent to mediocre in the last three games. He has given up 13 earned runs in that span, including four home runs, as his season ERA spiked from 1.69 to 5.48.

Rodon, who is on a six-year, $162 million deal, gave up two home runs to the same batter in Sunday's game against the San Francisco Giants. Jung Hoo Lee homered to right center in the fourth inning, and followed it up with another home run, a two-run shot in the sixth inning.

After Sunday's fixture, Rodon has now allowed 51 home runs, tying with former ace JA Happ for allowing the most homeruns in any player's first 50 games with the Yankees.

Rodon finished his spell against the Giants, pitching 5.2 innings, allowing three hits, four earned runs, three walks and eight strikeouts.

Carlos Rodon reveals what's going wrong amid rough stretch

Sunday marked the third straight start for Carlos Rodon where he gave up four or more earned runs. In his previous starts against the Detroit Tigers and the Arizona Diamondbacks, he gave up five and four earned runs, respectively.

The one thing where Rodon finds himself lacking is converting two-strike pitches.

“I’m frustrated with two-strike pitches that end up in the zone,” Rodón said. “I just need to be better executing those, because these are big league hitters. They’re some of the best hitters in the world, and they’re punishing them.”

Yankees manager Aaron Boone shared his verdict following another rough outing from his premier ace, who now leads the majors with 51 home runs allowed across 50 starts since July 7, 2023.

“It’s that small of a separator between him being in a dominant position right now,” Boone said. “The reality is, we’ve got to look at it as, he’s throwing the ball incredibly well. It’s that next level of avoiding that – today, it’s one [pitch].”

When you think about Rodon, one would say a lot of fastballs and occasional breaking pitches. But on Sunday, the story was different. Giants manager Bob Melvin said.

“When you think of him,” Melvin said, “it’s fastballs at the top of the zone. Today, it was a ton of breaking balls in off counts, too. We made him work a little bit.”

Rodon needs to pick up the slack as the team won't see reigning Rookie of the Year Luis Gil up on the mound until July and Gerrit Cole for the season.