Yankees’ Carlos Rodón opens up about ‘embarrassing’ finale to nightmare season

KANSAS CITY — Moments after speaking to reporters in front of his locker on Friday night, his tone as dejected as ever, Carlos Rodón marched through the Yankees’ clubhouse toward Aaron Boone’s office.

The manager stood leaning in the doorway, nodding his head toward the entrance as Rodón approached.

When the two stepped inside, the click of the door closing could be heard throughout the silent clubhouse.

Rodón’s performance in Friday night’s 12-5 loss to the Royals was grounds for a visit to the skipper’s office. The southpaw finished his horrific season with a new low, failing to record an out while allowing eight earned runs in the bottom of the first.

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As if this entire season full of injuries and ineffectiveness was enough of a nightmare for Rodón, the left-hander now has to sleep on Friday’s disaster all winter long.

What made a conversation with the manager even more of a necessity in Kansas City, however, was Rodón’s antics on the mound. It was another case of the $162 million arm letting his frustration get the best of him.

During a mound visit after the first six Royals reached to begin the bottom of the first, Rodón turned his back to pitching coach Matt Blake, seemingly waving him back to the dugout multiple times. It was a quick interaction that went unnoticed for many in the moment, but it was on both Boone and Rodón’s minds postgame.

“He was trying to come out and help,” Rodón said. “It was one of those things where I was obviously frustrated with the situation. I’d given up five runs on five hits, I walked a guy and couldn’t get an out in the first inning. It wasn’t good.”

Boone acknowledged that he’d prefer “better mound presence” from the starter in that kind of situation, explaining that he wanted to take a closer look at what exactly transpired before speaking on the matter any further.

“The guy is competing his ass off and it’s been a tough year for him,” Boone said. “He’s trying to figure it out. He wants to do well. It’s hard, it’s heavy, but he’s right back on the bench at the end of the game. We don’t have any issue with him as far as how he’s going about it, how he’s getting after it and his care factor. We just got to get him going consistently, that’s going to be the challenge.”

Asked if he thought his actions were disrespectful, Rodón agreed without hesitation.

“I’m sure it was,” he said. “It wasn’t great. Definitely not the best move. It shouldn’t happen. I was frustrated with myself and my performance. Really embarrassing. And then doing that with Matt, coming out and trying to help me, I turned my back. I was just not in the right mind, that’s for sure. That’s on me.”

You have to figure that was the subject of the private discussion between the manager and southpaw as the rest of the team hit the showers.

Earlier this season, Rodón blew a kiss to an angry Yankees fan in Anaheim, a controversial gesture that garnered more criticism (and plenty of impressions on social media). Mix those two interactions with Rodón’s ghastly 6.85 ERA over 13 starts and his four months spent on the injured list and the southpaw is worthy of all kinds of criticism.

Any momentum that the starter established this month while starting to find some results was washed away with what the lefty called a “terrible” outing, wrapping up a “disappointing” year.

“I’m looking forward to taking some time to myself and getting away from baseball,” Rodón added. “When the time’s right, hopefully in a couple weeks after that, I’ll get back to training and just really focus on what I’m going to do on the mound, how I want to move on the mound and really establish that when spring training comes around.”

It’s senseless to give up on Rodón as a Joey Gallo-level bust after one awful season. It’s very possible that his persistent injuries and the stop-and-start timeline of his throwing program contributed to his devastating dip in results. Seeing a pitcher that was dominant and overpowering in previous seasons look so underwhelming (when he’s been healthy) is certainly grounds for concern, though. It makes Rodón an unknown commodity — that’s making $27 million per season — entering next spring, an arm that simply hasn’t proven that he can be trusted yet.

“I’m not going to make any excuses about starting off the season with an injury,” Rodón said. “My job is to show up and compete when I’m available. Unfortunately that was halfway through the season. There were some OK starts sprinkled in, but most of it was pretty bad. It’s one of those things where I’m definitely looking forward to next year, that’s for sure.”

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Max Goodman may be reached at mgoodman@njadvancemedia.com.