Yankees' Opening Day starter will be Carlos Rodon 

TAMPA, Fla. — With Yankees ace Gerrit Cole out for the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery earlier in the week, lefthander Carlos Rodon will be the Yankees’ Opening Day starter when they host the Brewers on March 27 at the Stadium.

“It’s an honor,” Rodon said before the Yankees’ 6-5 victory over the Phillies on Friday night at Steinbrenner Field. “I’m excited. Just want to go out there and win the game.”

Manager Aaron Boone made the announcement on Friday afternoon and, in doing so, also said lefthander Max Fried will start the second game. Boone did not disclose the rotation order for the third and fourth games of the season.

“Really excited to give him the ball,” Boone said of Rodon. “He’s in the right frame of mind and throwing the ball well. Excited to do it, and then at the end of the day, it’s just the first one.”

Rodon, 32, who signed a six-year, $162 million free-agent contract before the 2023 season, will make his second career Opening Day start. The other came in 2019 with the White Sox, with whom Rodon spent the first seven seasons of his now 10-year career.

Rodon, a train wreck in his first season in pinstripes — an injury-plagued 2023 in which he went 3-8 with a 6.85 ERA in 64 1⁄3 innings (14 starts) — rebounded last season, going 16-9 with a 3.96 ERA in 175 innings. The 16 wins were a career high.

“I feel like his arsenal continues to evolve,” Boone said. “The secondary stuff is getting stronger and stronger, the changeup is becoming a real factor for him now. I feel like he’s doing a good job with both of his breaking balls, and the stuff and the shape with the four-seam has been there. He’s in a good spot.”

Throughout his career, Rodon has relied primarily on his fastball and slider. But he made it a goal last season to incorporate more off-speed pitches into his repertoire, a changeup in particular.

In some ways, Rodon’s 2024 was better than his numbers indicate. He had 195 strikeouts and walked 57 in 175 innings, with the strikeouts and innings the second-highest totals of his career. His ERA ballooned because of four bad starts in which he allowed 25 earned runs in 16 innings. He had a 2.94 ERA in his other 28 starts and allowed three or fewer runs in 25 of his career-high 32 starts.

“It was quite the journey for sure, some ups and downs,” Rodon said. “Just add that changeup to the mix a little bit, rely on some off-speed and have a little more pitchability.”

He added of the Opening Day start: “Honestly, it’s just the first game of the season. It’s another baseball game. It’s just one of those things, you take it like another game. It just so happens to be the first one of the year.”

That’s not as nonchalant as it sounds.

“Listen, it’s the Bronx Zoo. I love Yankee Stadium,” Rodon said. “Unfortunately, the last game we played there was Game 5 of the World Series, which was also electric. The outcome was not. But always a great atmosphere.”

Notes & quotes: Hall of Fame manager Joe Torre, who arrived in camp as a guest instructor Friday, brought out the lineup card before Friday’s game. Wearing his familiar No. 6, Torre exchanged cards with Phillies manager Rob Thomson, who spent 28 years in the Yankees’ organization in a variety of roles, including being a coach on Torre’s staff and later Joe Girardi’s. It was Torre who gave the super-organized-no-detail-too-small Thomson his “Topper” nickname because he, as Torre used to say, was “on top” of everything . . . Righthander Carlos Carrasco, a nonroster invitee who has a major-league out clause in his contract that allows him to go to another team if it can guarantee him a spot on their 26-man roster to start the season, allowed one run, two hits and a walk in 3 1⁄3 innings, striking out six. He also hit two batters. The outing furthered his chances of being added to the roster as the Yankees’ organizational rotation depth, at the moment, is virtually nonexistent. Carrasco, who will turn 38 next Friday, was helped out in the first inning by Aaron Judge, who battled the sun to make a catch in rightfield and fired a one-hopper to catcher J.C. Escarra to retire Kyle Schwarber . . . T.J. Rumfield hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to tie the score at 5 and Brendan Jones had a walk-off two-out single. Ben Rice hit a two-out, two-run homer off Taijuan Walker and Escarra had a solo shot.