Yankees capture ALCS Game 1 over Guardians behind Carlos Rodon's strong start and homers by Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stanton

Carlos Rodon kept his emotions — which have gotten the better of him at times during the heat of competition, as he would be the first to admit — in check.

Probably not coincidentally, he kept the Guardians in check, too.

Rodon struck out nine in six innings and Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton homered to lead the Yankees to a 5-2 victory over Cleveland in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series on Monday night in front of 47,264 at the Stadium.

“Gosh, he was good,” Aaron Boone said. “I thought he was just in complete command of himself and of his emotions.”

The Yankees can put an early stranglehold on the series Tuesday night when ace Gerrit Cole, who has dominated Cleveland throughout his career, faces righthander Tanner Bibee.

Rodon, who came unglued in his ALDS start against the Royals after Salvador Perez led off the fourth inning with a homer, had no issues of any kind Monday. The lefthander, featuring a mid-90s fastball and darting slider, allowed one run, three hits and zero walks in his 93-pitch outing. Rodon, who got 25 swings and misses, continually pounded the strike zone (63 of those pitches were strikes).

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

The same could not be said of the Guardians. The Yankees benefited from four wild pitches by reliever Joey Cantillo, two of which allowed a pair of two-out runs to score, and drew six walks in the third and fourth innings while taking a 4-0 lead. They have drawn 34 walks in five postseason games.

The Yankees were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and stranded seven through four innings, but as it turned out, they had all the runs they needed.

“I thought we took a lot of good at-bats,” Boone said. “Didn’t necessarily have that big hit again to make it a huge offensive night for us, but I thought a lot of heavy at-bats again that kind of set us up and put Carlos in a good position.”

Brayan Rocchio led off the sixth with a home run to bring the Guardians within 4-1 and end Rodon’s streak at 11 straight batters retired.

Clay Holmes, coming off an ALDS in which he appeared in all four games and did not allow a run, pitched a perfect seventh.

After Stanton blasted a 439-foot home run to left-center off the back of the Guardians’ bullpen in the seventh, the Guardians got within 5-2 in the eighth against Tim Hill.

Andres Gimenez singled with one out and Rocchio hit a ground smash to first that deflected off Anthony Rizzo. As Rizzo gave chase up the rightfield line for the ball, Hill covered first and Gimenez made contact with him as he made a move toward second. Hill was called for obstruction and suddenly the Guardians had runners at second and third with one out.

After an RBI single to left by Steven Kwan, Boone brought on Luke Weaver for a five-out save. He struck out pinch hitter Will Brennan swinging at a changeup and got the dangerous Jose Ramirez to ground to second.

Weaver walked Lane Thomas to start the ninth but struck out the next three to improve to 4-for-4 in save chances this postseason.

“I think winning the first game in anything is awesome, to keep that momentum,” he said. “Obviously, here at home, it’s important to try and get the first two games if possible.”

The Yankees, who finished with six hits, picked up two of them in each of the first two innings but ended up stranding a combined four runners in those innings against Alex Cobb.

But Soto’s ownership of Cobb continued, loudly, in the third as he launched a 387-foot homer to right-center into the Yankees’ bullpen to make it 1-0. The hit improved Soto to 9-for-13 with three homers against Cobb, a long-time Tampa Bay Ray who came in 7-5 with a 3.19 ERA against the Yankees.

Cobb, injured much of the year and coming off a three-inning start vs. Detroit in the ALDS, lasted only 2 2⁄3 innings Monday.

After the Soto blast, he walked Judge, struck out Austin Wells and walked Stanton. Jazz Chisholm Jr. flied to left, but Cobb walked Anthony Volpe to load the bases and Cantillo replaced him.

The overwhelmed lefthander spiked his third pitch in the dirt for a wild pitch that made it 2-0. Rizzo walked on four pitches to re-load the bases, and with the count 1-and-2 on Alex Verdugo, Cantillo threw another wild pitch to make it 3-0.

Gleyber Torres led off the fourth with a walk and Cantillo threw two more wild pitches to put him on third. After walking Soto, he was replaced by Pedro Avila, and Aaron Judge hit a sacrifice fly to center for a 4-0 lead.

“It’s big,” Rizzo said of taking Game 1. “Stadium was rocking. It’s a good team, and they’re coming off a huge high [beating Detroit in five games]. To win today was very big. [Rodon] set the tone.”