It seems like this Carlos Rodon fella is pretty good.
That was made evident last season, when Rodon contended for the Cy Young award. But at this — albeit very early — juncture, he’s giving San Francisco exactly what it paid for. He anchored San Francisco in a 4-1 win in Cleveland, kicking off the first road trip of the year with cause aplenty for optimism.
Over seven innings, Rodon allowed two hits, one run and struck out nine batters. He’s now struck out 21 in his first two games as a Giant, the second-most by a Giants starter through their first two starts of the season since 1901, per the team.
The only time Rodon ran into any trouble was self-caused, in his final two innings.
He walked Myles Straw in the sixth inning and with the just-extended — to a seven-year, $141 million deal — Jose Ramirez on deck, Rodon reached back for a 98 MPH four-seamer in a 3-2 count, striking out Steven Kwan.
That was a feat against Kwan, the Guardians’ breakout star of the early season, whose swing and miss was just his third thus far. Rodon is showing an early ability for damage limitation, finding the key out when he needs it.
Rodon was punished just once in the ensuing seventh inning. He appeared to want nothing to do with Ramirez, a career .293 hitter against lefties, walking him on four pitches. He then labored to a 3-2 count against Franmil Reyes before allowing just his second hit of the day. That pushed Ramirez to third and later netted Cleveland a sacrifice fly.
But Rodon’s ability to recover was astounding. There’s a pretty legitimate argument to be made that he found his best stuff after that seventh-inning jam.
For most of the night, he was struggling with his slider. At one point, he’d missed the strike zone with 8 of his 11 sliders and had just one swing-and-miss with the pitch.
But his final strikeout of the night came on that slider. When he has it under control, nibbling at the corners and cutting across the plate vertically and horizontally, it might as well be unhittable.
There are myriad points worth recognizing Rodon for. He has that elite, upper-90s velocity with the ability to cut across the plate and attack every area of the zone, plus a gnarly offspeed slider-curveball mix and a stoicism on the mound under pressure.
It was his velocity in concert with his efficiency that highlighted his performance on Friday. Those offspeed pitches weren’t all that forgiving — at one point he plunked Kwan on the side of the head with a runaway curve — so he went with what the fastball until leaning on the slider in the seventh.
And the fastball was working. Seven of his nine strikeouts came on the fastball, with five of those high in the zone and all of them clocking in at 96 or more.
The fact that he shut down the Cleveland lineup when, for most of the outing, he had just one consistent pitch, is extremely encouraging.
He pounded the strike zone and while he wasn’t forcing the same swings and misses he found in his nonsensically good 12-strikeout debut, he controlled the zone and managed to avoid predictability even while leaning on the fastball 76 percent of the time.
Perhaps as encouraging as that dominance was the efficiency. He threw just 90 pitches and was reaching his highest velocities the later it got. That slider, which, again, was dormant for most of the performance, found that whip that makes it so tantalizing, and punctuated his night with a strikeout.
Thankfully, his performance was rewarded, and he was doled out some early assistance from his fellow left-sided friends.
Brandon Crawford notched his first home run of the season with a true no-doubter, sent, in all its aesthetic glory, roughly two dozen rows back and nearly 400 feet.
That shot was bookended by another from Joc Pederson, who secured his first home run off an actual pitcher (his first came off Wil Myers) for a cool 410 feet to right-center. It meant that when Rodon departed, it was with a one-run lead and the win possibility still intact.
There was still more to come, as the Giants, who were so reliant on their scoring from the long ball last season, made a case of continuing that on Friday.
Joey Bart finished the scoring with a get-out-quick, scorching line drive homer to left. The 109.2 mile per hour exit velocity and the oddity of the high fence in Cleveland’s left field had him wondering if he’d actually pushed it out of the park, but a relatively quick review cemented his second home run of the year.
While the Giants only scored four runs, they were smacking the leather off the baseball.
It felt like even the eight hits San Francisco secured should have been greater. Their contact was consistently excellent, with 13 of the 16 highest exit velocities on the night coming off Giants bats and an expected batting average of .313 as a team.
They worked four walks — two, of course, for Brandon Belt — ensuring that there was always the threat of scoring, even if it wasn’t capitalized upon.
Collectively, it was a stellar pitching night coupled with a patient, explosive approach at the plate. Camilo Doval rounded it out with equal parts sketchiness and brilliance for his second save of the season.
Doval also has Austin Slater to thank. He ended the night with a diving catch, which served as a welcome punctuation for a Giants team that’s now 5-2 in the early going.
