Juan Soto hits two of Yankees' five homers, Carlos Rodon allows two hits in seven innings and fans 10

For one day — and given their slipshod play during the last month, it is important to point out the “one day” part — the Yankees resembled the baseball team they were during the first 2 1⁄2 months of the season.

With Carlos Rodon turning in his best start in well over a month and additional production coming from hitters not named Juan Soto or Aaron Judge, the Yankees earned a split of their four-game series against the Rays on Monday afternoon by hitting five home runs in their 9-1 win in front of 40,824 at the Stadium.

Soto still played a crucial part in the victory, homering in the seventh and eighth innings and adding a double. Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe went back-to-back off Rays starter Zack Littell in the second and DJ LeMahieu went deep in the fifth.

“It’s always great to see those guys doing what they do,” Soto said after the Nos. 2 through 9 hitters went 15-for-32. “We need all those guys. At the end of the day, it’s going to take more than two guys to go to the World Series and win it. It’s great to see those guys [get going].”

It was significant for Rodon to get going, too.

The lefthander, who in many ways was the primary face of the collective faceplant done by the pitching staff during the Yankees’ 9-20 stretch entering Monday, was terrific.

Rodon, 0-5 with a 9.67 ERA in his previous six starts, held a Rays team that had totaled eight homers in victories on Saturday and Sunday to one run and two hits in seven innings (matching a season high). He walked two and had a season-high 10 strikeouts, including seven on sliders.

“Wells and I, we had a nice rhythm,” said Rodon (10-7, 4.42). “Just a steady mix of everything, getting ahead and attacking the strike zone.”

Rodon, who brought an 8.55 first-inning ERA into the day, threw 15 pitches in a 1-2-3 first.

“He was able to execute the fastball in and out and his off-speed [had] good location,” Wells said. “Having all four pitches today, being able to execute them, allowed us to get length and have success.”

Wells and Volpe, close friends from their days in the minors, gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead in the second with their seventh homers of the season. It ended a streak of 255 plate appearances and 242 at-bats without a home run for Volpe, who had last homered on May 16.

Oswaldo Cabrera’s two-run single in the fourth made it 4-0, giving Rodon some breathing room. “[When] I can go to work with a lead, it makes it easier for sure,” he said.

Rodon retired nine straight after walking Brandon Lowe in the second. The Rays got their first hit — and only run — in the fifth when Jose Siri drove a 95-mph fastball the other way to right. His 14th homer made it 4-1.

As was the case after homering on Sunday, Siri took his time rounding the bases, all but stopping before touching third base, drawing loud boos from the crowd and daggers from the Yankees’ dugout.

“He hit that ball well,” Rodon said. “He can run as slow or as fast as he wants.”

LeMahieu, without a homer in 237 plate appearances and 206 at-bats since last Sept. 5, led off the fifth by hitting a hanging slider just over the wall in leftfield to push the lead to 5-1.

Soto, whose 424-foot homer into the rarely-reached suite level in rightfield in the seventh made it 6-1, capped the scoring with a three-run laser in the eighth.

Soto went 11-for-18 with two homers, a triple and four doubles in the series. Volpe was 6-for-14. Alex Verdugo, who had been 0-for-19, 2-for-36 and 14-for-101, picked up a single and set up Cabrera’s two-run single with a groundout that advanced both runners (even if Verdugo never left the box, apparently thinking it was foul).

“We had really nice at-bats, the whole lineup up and down,” Cabrera said. “I feel happy about it, but at the same time we know that we can do this every day.”