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MIAMI — Carlos Rodón’s smooth sailing turned into a bruise cruise.
The lefty’s squandering of most of a six-run lead was not the biggest Yankees pitching story in Friday night’s 13-12 loss to the Marlins.
That distinction belonged to newly acquired reliever Camilo Doval, acquired from the Giants at the trade deadline, who flushed a 12-10 lead in the ninth inning. A close second goes to two other newcomers, Jake Bird and David Bednar, who combined to give up six runs in the seventh inning to turn a 9-3 Yankees lead into a 10-9 Miami advantage.
But it was Rodón’s collapse that started the ugly trifecta.
“I had a good little run going and then I got real inconsistent, spraying balls,” Rodón said. “Just not good enough. Five walks, 107 pitches to get 13 outs is pretty unacceptable.”
The Yankees’ 6-0 lead was built on the strength of a three-run homer by Giancarlo Stanton and a two-RBI single by Cody Bellinger.
In the bottom of the fifth, a leadoff walk followed by the two-run homer Rodón yielded to Javier Sanoja may have seemed harmless enough at the time.
Two strikeouts and two walks later, after his 107th pitch, Rodón was lifted in favor of Jonathan Loáisiga.
The reliever promptly hit Otto Lopez with a pitch to load the bases before serving up a two-run single to pinch-hitter Liam Hicks to make it 6-4.
“Rodo was kind of cruising early on there,” Aaron Boone said. “He just had trouble with the strike zone those last two innings and just got up to a point where I had to go get him.
“Not sure [why],” the manager continued. “He wasn’t off a lot, I didn’t feel like. He was just missing on some pitches. Missing on some 3-2 counts. I thought in the early innings he was pretty sharp and I thought stuff was OK, but he just lost the strike zone a little bit.”
Rodón’s record remains 11-7 but he has been trending in the wrong direction for a while.
In May, he pitched to a 1.47 ERA in five starts.
In June, it was 3.71 in six outings. In July, his six starts produced a 4.24 ERA.
And Friday night was an even worse beginning to August.
A day earlier, Marcus Stroman was handed a 7-0 lead against the Rays at Yankee Stadium. He gave up four runs in the fourth, left after five and was released by the Yankees on Friday.
