The New York Yankees’ starting rotation has been beset by a few unfortunate injuries, with Gerrit Cole set to miss the entirety of the 2025 season due to Tommy John surgery and Luis Gil suffering a lat injury that will keep him out for at least a few weeks. To that end, the Yankees have called upon a left-handed starting pitcher to take the ball on Opening Day — with that pitcher being Carlos Rodon instead of their big-money signing this offseason in Max Fried.

Getting the call to start on Opening Day is a major honor, and for Rodon, this is only the second of his career — with his first coming back in 2019 when he was still with the Chicago White Sox. However, Rodon kept it real; despite all the emotions that comes with starting on the season-opener, he knows that at the end of the day, it’s only Game 1 out of 162 for the Yankees.

“Just an honor; I’m excited. I just want to go out there and win the game. Honestly, it’s just the first game of the season and another baseball game,” Rodon said, per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com.

Indeed, every team in the MLB knows that they cannot assign heavy emotional importance to just one game during the very long grind that is the regular season. While all 30 teams would want to start the season with a win, it’s important that they take into account the fact that only 0.06 percent of the season has passed after the first game — with the Yankees lefty being fully aware of this.

Nonetheless, on March 27, expect Rodon to bring his A-game on the mound as the Yankees take on the Milwaukee Brewers to kick off the 2025 season.

Yankees need their starting rotation to step up

The Yankees will need their in-house starting pitching options to step up; general manager Brian Cashman may prefer to acquire an ace-caliber pitcher to front the rotation in the aftermath of the team’s injury woes, but he himself has admitted that nothing is available to them in terms of affordable options (prospect capital via trade).

New York will be expecting huge seasons from Carlos Rodon and Max Fried, while the Yankees are looking for sustained production coming from Clarke Schmidt. But the back-end of the rotation has plenty of question marks, with Marcus Stroman looking to bounce back from a mediocre 2024 campaign and Will Warren getting an extended look.