NEW YORK — This is why the Yankees are paying Carlos Rodón $162 million over six years: to have a top-notch poker face. 

Rodon’s biggest challenge taking the mound for Game 1 of the American League Championship Series wasn’t navigating Cleveland’s dangerous lineup. Rodón’s greatest enemy was actually himself. 

When the veteran allows his emotions to take control over his outing, things can quickly get out of whack. It’s what happened in his first start this postseason against the Royals; he was amped too early and too often — sticking his tongue out and gaping after a first-inning strikeout — and allowed his focus to slip away from the task at hand. He was pulled after coughing up four earned runs in just 3.2 innings against Kansas City.

But he learned a lot in the week between his next playoff start. He studied Gerrit Cole, received advice from Andy Pettitte, and said he would be better his next time out. Even so, it’s one thing to do all the prep, but it’s another to actually execute on the mound — no less in a playoff start. 

Finally, in his team’s 5-2 win over the Guardians on Monday night at Yankee Stadium, the fiery left-hander put his career 11.37 postseason ERA in the rearview and pitched with authority. 

“The goal was to stay in control,” Rodón said. “Stay in control of what I can do, physically and emotionally. I thought I executed that well tonight.”

He was being modest. Rodón struck out nine batters and allowed just one run on three hits across six innings, and kept his emotions in check every time. But it was easy to tell this was a battle for Rodón. Being nonreactive isn’t exactly second nature for him. He seemed to be putting as much effort into controlling his emotions as he was into his pitch diet of fastballs, sliders, curveballs and changeups. Rather than acknowledge the crowd’s raucous energy with some of his own, Rodón rolled his shoulders back and kept his head down on the mound. The southpaw proceeded to register 25 swings and misses.

He was locked in, and it manifested. 

Rodón’s only blemish of the night came on a Brayan Rocchio home run to lead off the sixth inning. But there was no ensuing meltdown. There was no look of befuddlement as he watched Rocchio’s long ball sail over the left-field wall. He retired the next three batters and finished his outing by pointing his glove at Aaron Judge, who ran down a rocket off José Ramírez’s bat for the final out of the sixth. Rodón sent down the Guardians slugger all three times he faced him.

“I think he was very aware of what the last outing ended up being and just how the emotions got away from him early,” Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake said. “That was going to be a focus for him throughout the game. Each inning you could tell he was trying to stay steady and be neutral about it and just keep collecting outs.”

While Rodón went to work, the Yankees piled on. Juan Soto slammed his first postseason home run as a Yankee in the third inning, putting New York on the board with a 1-0 lead. Giancarlo Stanton added insurance in the seventh with his second home run of the postseason, which was his 13th career playoff jack since 2018. Stanton has a 1.244 OPS in five postseason games this October. But while Soto, Stanton and Aaron Judge all collected RBIs in the Game 1 victory, it was Rodón who stood out as the game changer.

“He was the driver tonight,” Stanton said of Rodón. “Juan got us going on the offensive side, but Carlos was holding them down and giving us a chance to score and add to it.”

Rodón didn’t achieve this picture of poise on his own. 

Days after the Royals detected that his emotions were running high and sent him packing in the fourth inning, Rodón sought out advice from Pettitte, the former Yankees southpaw and five-time World Series champion, on how to keep a good poker face on the mound. Pettitte, currently in an advisor role with the Yankees, won 63.3% of his postseason decisions in part by refusing to allow the opponent in on what he was thinking and feeling. Rodón said Pettitte’s advice left an impression. 

Then, while Cole dominated the Royals in Kansas City last Thursday, Rodón leaned on the dugout railing and closely watched his every reaction. Captivated, Rodón kept his eyes focused on Cole even as drama unfolded between Anthony Volpe and Maikel Garcia at second base. Rodón watched as Cole became agitated without letting the situation ruin what had been a strong outing. 

“You can tell he gets a little pissed off,” Rodón said of Cole. “But he kind of just keeps it in frame and gets back on the mound. They do end up scoring a run, but he keeps them to one run. The biggest thing I saw from him in the seventh, he didn’t react every inning. If you watched him come out, it’s just like a robot walking to the dugout. Then at the end of the seventh, it’s a big roar because he knows, I did my job. I think that’s one thing that resonated with me from that start.”

Rodón tried to be like Cole the robot against Cleveland and, for the most part, he was. His six innings of one-run ball weren’t just important for the Yankees, who took a 1-0 series lead over the Guardians to begin the ALCS, but an enormous response to the criticism manager Aaron Boone received for going with Rodón in the first place. With Cole slotted for Game 2 on four days’ rest, Boone was choosing between right-hander Clarke Schmidt or Rodón for the series opener. Cleveland was the third-best offensive team in the AL against left-handers in the regular season, so no one would’ve blamed Boone if he opted to start Schmidt in Game 1. 

But Rodón was signed by the Yankees for moments like Monday; a packed house of 47,264 in the Bronx, doing his part as the rotation’s lethal 1-2 punch alongside Cole, all while being accountable in front of the zoo that is the New York media.

The mental and physical flow Rodón realized in Game 1 was the elixir to the ghastly postseason ERA he brought into Monday night’s outing. This was exactly what the Yankees expected from Rodón when they made him the highest-paid pitcher in the 2023 free-agent class. After being limited to just 14 starts because of injuries last year, and posting a dreadful 6.85 ERA in the process, this was Rodón’s year to start earning his contract. He showed up to spring training noticeably slimmer, then stayed out of the trainer’s room all season, and bounced back with a 3.96 ERA across a career-high 32 healthy starts and 175 innings. 

Rodón’s 26-week stretch of being a workhorse in the regular season helped the Yankees get to this point, particularly when Cole missed the first two-plus months with an elbow injury. But Rodón can give the Yankees a bigger, more important lift by replicating this routine his next time out.

The Yankees are three wins from advancing to the World Series. Rodón can count on one hand how many more times he will need his poker face.

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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Meet the nominees for the BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year 2024 – Barbra Banda, Aitana Bonmati, Naomi Girma, Caroline Graham-Hansen and Sophia Smith.

Voting closes at 09:00 GMT on Monday, 28 October 2024 and the winner will be announced on Tuesday, 26 November on BBC World Service and the BBC Sport website and app.

READ MORE: BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year 2024 – the contenders

IT IS easy to forget, after eight serene years of Gareth Southgate, that the default mode for the England football team, and the FA, is one of utter chaos.

After last week’s bewildering, headless-chicken home defeat by Greece and the endless, dizzying ramblings from Lee Carsley about whether or not he wants to be Southgate’s full-time successor, it seems like deja vu all over again.

Because this was what following England used to feel like.
Before Southgate took over — and the Three Lions became supremely competent and professional on and off the field — it really always was stark, raving bonkers.

Under Southgate it could be a little boring, a little too cautious, at times. But England rarely lost football matches, always featured at the sharp end of tournaments and were always a serious, rational set-up.

It was never the long-running, hopes-up, trousers-down, clown show we endured for decades until one decent, intelligent man in a waistcoat arrived and decided enough was enough.

Southgate banked tens of millions as England boss and we can safely assume that he hasn’t custard-gunned it all on drink, drugs and loose women.

He confirmed he wants a sabbatical of at least a year before he returns to coaching.

And, therefore, he wouldn’t touch the Manchester United job with a bargepole, despite having significant allies on the Old Trafford board.

Southgate is enjoying life away from the madhouse.

He’s been seeing the family, walking the dogs, watching the cricket and plans to give a talk at Harvard University.

Those sort of Gareth things. And good for him.

Some of us knew England would miss Southgate dearly but perhaps we didn’t realise quite how soon, and quite how deeply, we would regret his exit.

The FA relied on him to a greater extent than they ever realised.

As a statesman, a figurehead, a beacon of good sense and decency, as well as a very useful football manager, who was extremely popular with his players.

And whatever happens next — whether more interim Carsley, or Graham Potter, or perhaps the colourful loose-cannon Thomas Tuchel arrives from Germany — history tells us that we will probably go back to bedlam.

Pep Guardiola? Now that might be a different, if unlikely, prospect.
Because the England manager’s role wasn’t called ‘the impossible job’ without good reason.

Remember Sam Allardyce resigning after one match, having been caught out acting exactly like Sam Allardyce, boasting over a pint of wine during a covert sting?

Remember the Iceland debacle and, before that, the disastrous Brazil World Cup campaign under Roy Hodgson — which had been pretty much predicted by FA chief executive Greg Dyke performing a throat-slitting gesture when the draw was made?

Remember the John Terry fiascos under Fabio Capello — when the Chelsea man was stripped of the captaincy for having allegedly diddled the former girlfriend of the reserve left-back, only to be reinstated as captain.

And then to be accused of racially abusing the brother of his central defensive partner and for Capello to resign rather than sack Terry as captain again?

That was Capello, who claimed he only needed to know 100 words of English and who agreed to take extra money for rating his own players out of 100 in something on the internet called ‘the Capello Index’ at the 2010 World Cup.

Yes, kids, all this actually happened.

And before that, Steve McClaren, under an umbrella, failing to qualify for the 2008 Euros.

And before him, the late Sven-Goran Eriksson and the peak era of low farce — the fake Sheikh, the Beckham circus, the WAGs table-dancing in Baden-Baden, the Faria Alam scandal which ended with FA chief executive Mark Palios resigning after he and Eriksson had both diddled the same secretary.

And that was after Kevin Keegan quit in the Wembley toilets, after Glenn Hoddle had resigned for making bizarre comments about disabled people and reincarnation, having employed faith healer Eileen Drewery to lay hands on his players.

And dentist chairs and turnips and gambling cultures and missed drug tests and threatened players’ strikes and so on and so, so farcical.

Thirty years of hurt have turned into 60 years because Southgate — despite reaching successive Euros finals and overseeing two very decent World Cup campaigns — couldn’t quite get his hands on a trophy.

And now the impossible job feels impossible again.

Because this is a nation obsessed with the game.

Because this is a nation which — I think we’re still allowed to say — was the birthplace of organised, competitive football.

Because this is a nation which is home to the richest and most popular league on the face of the Earth.

And because this is a nation which still craves the ultimate glory of a first major international title since 1966.

As Southgate (left) has frequently reminded us, the England manager’s job brings a uniquely sharp focus.

There are 60 million armchair bosses and, when it’s an international break or a summer tournament, England is the only show in town.

Expectations, which had dipped after all those years of nut-casery, are now limitless because Southgate came so close, so often.

All of this is surely too big for Carsley. It feels too big for Potter, too.

And for Tuchel, or most unsuspecting overseas candidates, all of this lunatic history feels too big to comprehend.

So if Guardiola really wants a serious new challenge.

And if he is really prepared to take a major pay cut, then he is one of the few men truly capable of being up to the job.

If not, it will just be back to bedlam again.

If not, we might be missing Southgate for a long time to come.

Hardy’s route into boxing was far removed from the traditional path.

She had already graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York with a degree in forensic psychology and idolised the late Supreme Court justice and women’s rights pioneer Ruth Bader Ginsburg before she even conceived the idea of a career in boxing.

Hardy knew she was a “powerful woman” but was unsure how to put her powers to best use.

Trying to make ends meet as a single mum and working anywhere between two to six jobs at one time, Hardy first stepped into a boxing gym in 2010 as a way to get a break from the daily grind. It soon became a passion and potentially a way out as she strived to provide a better quality of life for her daughter.

In April 2011, Hardy, aged 29, competed in her first amateur contest and became the US national featherweight champion just two months later.

After making her professional debut in the summer of 2012, Hardy embarked on a six-year unbeaten run, spanning 23 contests and culminating in a victory against Shelly Vincent for the WBO featherweight title at the Theater, inside Madison Square Garden.

She also challenged herself in the world of mixed martial arts and competed four times under the banner of promotion Bellator – winning two and losing two.

A first defeat in the boxing ring came at the hands of Serrano, a seven-division world champion, when they first met in 2019 and she retired with an overall record of 24 wins, three losses and one no-contest.

Hardy achieved that success inside the ring despite facing challenges few could ever imagine or would wish to experience in her personal life.

“There was everything from hurricanes to homelessness and house fires,” she says.

“We were on the street with my parents living in a church basement, anything that could happen did happen.

“But I’m sitting here because I have faith in God and I’ve walked with him this entire path. It’s a simple idea that you walk right, you do right and you don’t look back. You don’t give up, you don’t stop and what you deserve will come.”

BRITISH champion boxer Ben Whittaker was hauled away by airport security in Saudi Arabia for smashing a fan’s phone.

It came hours after the former Olympian, 27, drew his bout with Liam Cameron at the Kingdom Arena in farcical fashion on Saturday, having injured his leg on toppling over the ropes.

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He was taken out in a wheelchair before punching a wall in frustration prior to being taken to hospital.

IBF light-heavyweight champion Whittaker was spotted walking through security at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh just after midnight this morning with his ankle bandaged.

A witness, who was at the fight and booked on the same Saudi Airlines flight to Heathrow, said he was in duty free when he saw the confrontation.

He told The Sun: “I spotted Ben Whittaker coming through security and then a fan who had a boxing T-shirt on went up with his phone and went to take a photo.

“Ben said ‘don’t take no photos of me’ and snatched the phone out of his hand and smashed it straight on the floor.

“Ben stepped towards him, looked like he was gonna punch him and some of Ben’s team jumped in between them and it got really heated – they were shouting at each other.”

The witness, who did not wish to be named, said airport security detained the pair.

He added that both men – with the fan aged around 30 and wearing merchandise from the fight – initially had their passports taken off them.

“It caused a big scene,” he continued.

“Ben said he would pay for the phone and they both were made to write down their details… and they were allowed to go on the flight.”

It is understood the pair quickly calmed down and swapped details.

The witness said, strangely, the pair were taken into a nearby coffee shop and wrote their details while sitting side by side at the same table.

Whittaker offered to cover the cost of the phone and they parted on good terms.

“They literally did it at the Costa or Starbucks in front of everyone,” he said.

The witness said Whittaker appeared to be hobbling a bit and his ankle was bandaged at the time of the altercation.

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“When he went to the fan, he sort of forgot and had no problem running up to him. His face was lumpy and bruised from the fight.”

He said Whittaker was “fuming at first” but then calmed down once security were involved.

“He looked quite chilled out towards the end,” he added.

Whittaker told The Sun: “This was a really unfortunate event and I’m grateful to the gentleman that he sat down to talk about it straight afterwards and accepted my apology.

“Unfortunately I can’t comment further on the alleged video recording as I have not seen it.

“In any case, we are in touch about replacing his phone and coming along to a future event as our guest.”

During Saturday’s match, Whittaker and Cameron fell over the top rope at the end of the fifth round.

Cameron made his way back to his feet but Whittaker stayed down, clutching his right leg.

The fight – part of the Riyadh Season – IV Crown Showdown card – went to a technical decision with all three judges unable to come to an agreement.

Both boxers were then awarded a 58-57 score by two judges and 58-58 even by a third, resulting in the split decision draw.

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