The New York Yankees are excited about Elmer Rodriguez’s major league debut on Wednesday afternoon.
They also are enthusiastic about the prospect of capping a nearly perfect road trip with another win.
Rodriguez, a 22-year-old right-hander, will be on the mound when the Yankees finish a nine-game journey Wednesday against the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas.
The Yankees are 7-1 on the trip after hanging on for a 3-2 victory over the Rangers on Tuesday night. Aaron Judge homered for the third straight game and ninth time in 16 games, and David Bednar survived a shaky ninth by getting a double play to cap a stellar night defensively.
Judge has nine of his 12 homers this season in the past 16 games and tied Chicago White Sox rookie Munetaka Murakami for the major league lead. Austin Wells homered and Cody Bellinger hit an RBI double as the Yankees became the third team in the majors with 20 wins, joining the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers.
“A lot of good things to help us finish off that game, so an opportunity to finish off a great road trip tomorrow,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Tuesday.
New York is 10-1 over its past 11 games after getting scoreless outings from Max Fried and Cam Schlittler in the opening two games of the Texas series. Those outings lowered New York’s team ERA to 3.11, and Rodriguez will join the rotation for at least two turns.
In four starts for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, he is 1-2 but also posted a 1.27 ERA and an 0.89 WHIP. In 21 1/3 innings, he has struck out 20 and walked seven.
“He’s impressive,” Boone said. “I’ve really been impressed with a lot of our young guys that are kind of knocking on the door, Elmer included in that, about to be big-leaguers. Feel like they have a chance to be longtime big-leaguers. As well as being a talented pitcher, he seems to have a really good way and makeup about him that should serve him well.”
Texas hopes its offense can support a strong outing from right-hander Nathan Eovaldi (2-4, 5.79 ERA) on Wednesday. The Rangers did not score while Jack Leiter and Jacob deGrom were on the mound in the first two games as they mustered seven combined hits off Schlittler and Fried before making late rallies.
On Tuesday, Danny Jansen hit an RBI triple, and Josh Jung had an RBI single. Corey Seager ended the game by hitting into a double play with two runners on base and is hitting .189 over 24 games in April.
Texas also went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position and is 3-for-24 in that situation over its past three games.
“The last inning we did a really good job; we had the right guys up at the right time,” Texas manager Skip Schumaker said of his team, which scored its two runs Tuesday in the ninth inning. “I thought we made a run at it towards the end. Just couldn’t cash in.”
Eovaldi went 0-2 with an 11.42 ERA in his first two starts and 2-0 with a 1.38 ERA in his next two. He has been tagged for eight earned runs in 11 innings during defeats to the Athletics and Seattle Mariners in his two most recent outings.
Eovaldi is 6-6 with a 3.22 ERA in 24 career appearances (21 starts) against the Yankees, with whom he made 51 appearances and had a 23-11 combined record in 2015 and 2016.
–Field Level Media
