Carlos Rodon may slowly be turning back into the pitcher the Yankees thought they were getting when they signed him prior to last season.
No, he still isn’t back to the level that made the left-hander one of the most effective starters in the game in both 2021 and ’22, but he’s been solid or better in all but one of his outings this year.
In Wednesday’s 9-4 win over the Astros in The Bronx, Rodon bounced back from his worst start of the year, when he allowed seven runs — and three homers — in Baltimore.
Against a Houston team that looks like a shell of the one that has reached the ALCS every year since 2017, Rodon limited the Astros to two runs over 6 ¹/₃ innings.
He didn’t walk a batter and thanks in large part to an especially deceptive slider, struck out seven.
He threw the pitch more frequently than he normally has this season and was able to escape the one jam he faced using the slider, as he whiffed Kyle Tucker with one to end the top of the fifth with runners on the corners and the Yankees up by four runs.
“He was really good and got a lot of swing and miss,’’ Aaron Boone said. “He did a better job than he has all year in dictating counts. I liked how much he was in the strike zone.”
Rodon credited his improvement from his previous outing with an ability to attack the strike zone.
“I had an idea that I wanted to be up in the zone more than the last time,’’ said Rodon, now 2-0 with a 1.86 ERA in three home starts this year.
“I was able to get ahead and get to the slider.”
Rodon tired in the seventh, giving up a one-out double to Mauricio Dubon and a booming RBI triple to Jake Meyers to end his night before facing the top of the lineup for a fourth time.
Caleb Ferguson stranded Meyers at third, which helped Rodon hold the Astros to two runs.
In his eight starts this season, Rodon has allowed more than two runs just twice.
Among the other differences from his first disastrous season with the Yankees to this one is the fact that Rodon is getting more ground balls than he did a year ago.
Still, the 31-year-old has not approached what he did in 2021 with the White Sox and 2022 with San Francisco.
That pitcher is what enticed the Yankees to invest six years and $162 million in him.
“He’s in a good place and it’s a credit to all the work he’s done,’’ Boone said. “It started early in the offseason with his commitment to everything — pitching, conditioning — to put himself in position to give himself a chance to have success. He laid all the foundation and now we’re seeing the fruits of that.”