Watch: Carlos Rodón ignites the Yankees crowd after striking out the Royals in a dominant first inning

Carlos Rodón and the New York Yankees started the second game of their best-of-five ALDS against the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees were coming off a 6-5 victory in the series opener.

On Monday night, the home team got a stellar start from Carlos Rodón. The Yankees’ starting pitcher struck out all three Royals batters in the first inning. The crowd at Yankee Stadium erupted after the final strikeout of the inning as Rodon let out a roar.

The first batter of the game was the Royals' Maikel Garcia, who struck out on a 0-2 count, with all four-seam fastballs above 95 mph from Carlos Rodon. After Garcia, Bobby Witt Jr. came to the plate and struck out on a 1-2 count.

Rodon ended the inning by striking out Vinnie Pasquantino, setting a strong tone for his team to start the game. He kept the Royals scoreless for the first three innings. Meanwhile, the Yankees started their 1-0 lead in the third inning on Giancarlo Stanton’s RBI single.

However, in the fourth inning, Carlos Rodon struggled and gave up a solo homer to Salvador Perez which tied the score. Shortly after, he allowed singles to Tommy Pham and Garrett Hampson, putting the Royals ahead 3-1 with a two-run lead over the Yankees.

Rodon was then replaced by Ian Hamilton who ended the fourth inning giving a single to Maikel Garcia that scored a run. At the time of writing the Kansas City Royals are leading 4-1 against the New York Yankees by the sixth inning.

Carlos Rodon had a solid 2024 season, posting impressive regular-season stats

Carlos Rodon is coming off a strong 2024 regular season, recording a career-high 16 wins. Speaking about his performance, Rodón recently said (via CBS Sports):

"I think one of the bigger things is just the confidence, just finding that confidence again to go out and compete. The biggest thing for me is the confidence and the conviction in every pitch that I'm throwing and going out to win ballgames."

So far this season, Rodon has a 3.96 ERA and a 1.22 WHIP, with 32 games played, all as a starter. In his last five games, he posted a 2.20 ERA, allowing seven earned runs while recording 34 strikeouts.