When Indianapolis, Indiana, is discussed in the context of sports, speed is usually part of the conversation. It is there, in the Midwestern city located almost 200 miles south of Chicago, that the nation’s most storied motorsports event has taken place for more than a century.

Not far from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where the sights and sounds of racecars leave hundreds of thousands of spectators in awe every May, Carlos Rodón put in long hours in an effort to reclaim a different version of speed.

A few years before the now two-time All-Star signed a six-year deal worth $162 million with the Yankees, he was struggling to pitch effectively at the big league level. In racing vernacular, he was in need of a pit stop.

The Chicago White Sox had selected Rodón with the third overall pick in the 2014 Draft out of North Carolina State, and the southpaw rose through the organization rapidly, making his debut with the big club in 2015. By that season’s end, Rodón had won nine games and posted a 3.75 ERA with 139 strikeouts. He equaled that win total in his second season, giving the White Sox 165 innings of work and striking out 168 batters.

Going into his third season at the highest level, excitement filled the air on the Windy City’s South Side. Rodón was just 24 years old, and it seemed that he would be able to meet the lofty expectations that came with his Draft slot.

But that’s when Rodón’s fortunes began to go the other way. A long list of injuries that included a sprained left wrist, left biceps bursitis and left shoulder inflammation, coupled with inconsistency, contributed to a steep decline. Rodón made just 12 starts in 2017, winning two games, and although he rebounded in 2018, that season’s line -- 6-8 with a 4.18 ERA in 20 starts -- still didn’t align with where the organization had hoped he would be at that point in his career.

“Everything went so smoothly for me in amateur baseball,” Rodón said from a Yankee Stadium suite last December, as he decompressed with his family after his introductory press conference. “I worked hard, and everything really fell into my lap. It was just easy. Then, playing professional baseball was a completely different game, both on the field and in dealing with the challenges that came from injuries.”

After just his seventh start of the 2019 season, things got even worse for Rodón; he began to experience elbow pain, which led to Tommy John surgery that May. Through the increased challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic created for a player trying to rehab and return, Rodón worked his way back to the mound during the abbreviated 2020 season, only to find that he still had a long way to go.

After posting an 8.22 ERA in four appearances (two starts and two in relief), Rodón was handed the ball in Game 3 of his team’s AL Wild Card Series against Oakland. He gave up two runs without recording an out, and in a deciding game, with the season on the line, Chicago manager Rick Renteria called for help from the bullpen.

Chicago’s season came to an end later that night, and not long after, the White Sox chose to non-tender Rodón rather than pay him what he was projected to be awarded in arbitration. Getting released proved to be a seminal moment for the once-highly touted pitcher.

“Dealing with the expectations just became harder as things got away from me on the mound,” he said. “Letting down the fans and my family was hard to deal with, especially when the White Sox non-tendered me. I still had support from the people who loved me, but I felt as if the expectations for me coming in as a third overall pick were to turn the White Sox organization around. There was a lot of pressure, and I wanted to live up to that. When you get to a point in which the team decides to essentially let you walk out the door, you realize that you’re probably not the guy who is going to bring success to the organization or to the city you’ve been part of. That was tough.”

It was then that Rodón knew he needed to make wholesale changes, and when he returned to his home in Indiana, he found his way to the place where he believed that a team of baseball mechanics could fix him.

Having already worked with Dr. Jamey Gordon at Pro X Athlete before the 2020 season, Rodón returned to the Indianapolis facility where amateur and professional ballplayers hone their craft. Rodón knew that he needed more than a tuneup. He had to find another gear, a different approach, before leaving this important pit stop.

“I still had the ability to be a great Major League pitcher,” Rodón said. “But I also knew that what I was doing on the mound wasn’t going to lead to sustainable success.”

That mindset was the impetus behind a blunt exchange between Rodón and Jay Lehr, the lead pitching instructor at the facility.

“It was really simple,” Rodón said. “I had seen the work he had done with other pitchers there, and I just told him to fix me. Literally, I just walked up to him and said, ‘Fix me. I want to be fixed. Tell me what I need to do.’”

What Rodón needed to do was make adjustments from the ground up. After watching video of several of his appearances from previous seasons, Lehr went to work on getting Rodón to make better use of his legs.

“That’s where it all started,” Rodón said. “My back leg was coming off the mound too early, and it was rotating too soon.

“It all came down to how I interacted with the ground when I was throwing the baseball. I wasn’t grounded very well throughout my delivery off the mound during the years I was hurt and not pitching effectively. I was a toe striker and quad dominant. As a result, my command was not great, and my velocity and durability suffered.”

As the offseason moved along, one month and then another, Rodón worked diligently to improve his mechanics.

“We used a core velocity build-up tool,” he said. “From my back foot, I began to move down the mound properly. I would now be grounded while I was moving down the mound and throwing the baseball. That gave me more durability, and a delivery that I could repeat. Right away, it seemed more sustainable. I felt like it would let me throw harder for longer.”

Amid the mechanical rebuild, Rodón actually re-signed with the White Sox, who inked him to a one-year contract. He headed into the 2021 regular season with a renewed sense of confidence -- and with a feeling of positivity for the first time in a while.

“I knew that I had a foundation in place,” he said. “Things felt so much better than they had in the past. When I was rehabbing from Tommy John the previous year, I felt like I was just trying to figure out who I was as a pitcher, and then it seemed like we had about two seconds to get ready for the season.”

From the time he rejoined the organization in early February, Rodón began working with Ethan Katz, who had recently been named Chicago’s pitching coach. In the first conversation that Rodón had with Katz on FaceTime, and through the duration of Spring Training, the pitching coach’s message mirrored what he had heard from Lehr. Katz preached the importance of Rodón keeping his back foot planted until he released the baseball, and the big lefty heeded the advice.

“We talked about how all of your energy comes through the ground,” Rodón said. “The kinetic chain starts with your back foot and travels through your hips and to your shoulder. That chain is not very strong when you’re driving to home plate on your back toe rather than on your whole foot.”

Rodón found instant success from the mechanical adjustments he had worked so hard to make. In his second start of the 2021 season, he tossed a no-hitter against Cleveland. In that April 14 gem, Rodón struck out seven and came within one hit batter of perfection.

The no-hitter highlighted Rodón’s comeback season, but the statistics that were most important were the radar-gun readings. Rodón’s fastball in 2021 averaged 95.4 mph, up from 91.4 in 2019. The increase allowed him to rely more on his four-seamer, the pitch that he said paved the way to his dominance on the collegiate level with the Wolfpack.

With all of his pitches working -- including an 86 mph slider that opposing hitters managed to bat just .107 against in 2021 -- Rodón cruised through the first half of the season, earning the first All-Star selection of his career. He finished the regular season with a 13-5 record and a 2.37 ERA in 132 2/3  innings. His career-best 185:36 strikeout-to-walk ratio further proved that the changes he had made not only helped him to throw the baseball harder, but also more accurately.

“I was able to get my command back to where it had been in the early part of my professional career,” said Rodón, who topped out at 100.7 mph in 2021. “The other thing that we worked hard on was doing a better job of disguising pitches. I feel like I was able to make my slider and fastball look the same coming out of my hand.”

Having established himself as one of the most productive starters in the game, Rodón became a wanted man after the 2021 season. It didn’t take long for the San Francisco Giants to sign the Miami native to a two-year contract worth a reported $44 million. That deal included a player opt-out after the first season.

“I learned a lot more through adversity, especially considering that I never had to deal with failure before that,” Rodón said. “I knew that I was better for it when I got to San Francisco.”

Rodón approached the 2022 season with the goal of building off his comeback year of 2021. If there was one shortcoming that Rodón saw in his 2021 output, it was his inability to maintain his endurance down the stretch. Based on the lack of work he had between 2019 and 2020, Chicago was cautious with him in August and September of 2021, limiting him to just five innings in each of his last eight starts. Rodón also missed a few weeks in the second half with shoulder fatigue.

“I started slowing down in August of 2021,” Rodón said. “I got tired. I just didn’t have the buildup I probably needed at that time. When you think about it, most frontline starters had thrown between 160 and 180 innings in the previous season. Jumping [to 132 2/3 ] innings was a massive increase for me.

“I heard people saying that I was hurt again or that I wasn’t durable in 2021. But I knew that I could do it for a whole season in ’22; I just needed some extra time. So, going into last season, I was OK with people doubting me, but I was going to show everyone that I was going to pitch a whole season. I wanted to be stronger at the end than I was at the beginning. I wanted to quiet the critics.”

After a first half that earned him a second All-Star nod in as many years, Rodón proved that he could finish what he started. From the beginning of August through the end of the regular season, Rodón put together a 5-2 record, and of his 11 double-digit strikeout performances during the season, seven came after the All-Star break.

Overall, Rodón had a career year in 2022. He finished the season 14-8 with a 2.88 ERA in 31 starts. His 237 strikeouts ranked third in the Majors, and his 11.98 K’s per nine innings was best among all pitchers in the sport.

When Rodón opted out of the second year of his deal with the Giants, he immediately became one of the most sought-after starting pitchers on the free-agent market.

For Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, the thought of adding the 30-year-old southpaw to a rotation that already included Gerrit Cole, the 2022 Major League strikeout king; All-Star left-hander Nestor Cortes; and Luis Severino, a two-time All-Star who made 19 starts in 2022 following his 2020 Tommy John surgery, made all the sense in the world.

A day after the Yankees announced that they had re-signed Aaron Judge and made him the 16th captain in franchise history, Cashman stepped back up to the podium in Yankee Stadium’s press conference room and spoke about acquiring Rodón.

“The hope is that he has found his area of comfort,” Cashman said. “I can’t deny that he’s had a history of injuries prior to the last two seasons, but as a professional athlete, he’s on a journey, trying to navigate the 162-game season. So, I certainly believe that he found his sweet spot in the last few seasons.”

In addition to the numbers Rodón put up since 2021 -- both on his Baseball Reference page and on radar guns -- his passion brought Cashman’s interest to another level.

“From all of the information that we gathered from his teammates in Chicago and San Francisco, we found out that he has a competitive side that is probably second to none,” Cashman said. “He’s going to challenge lineups, come right at them with an attitude of triteness. He’s going to display that because he cares so much. I like that fire; it shows your teammates and the fan base just how invested you are.”

Before Rodón, his wife, Ashley, their two young children and his parents left the suite and the Stadium on that cold December afternoon, the pitcher reflected on “the journey” that his new GM had referenced.

“There’s a lot of satisfaction in resurrecting your career,” he said. “It was definitely derailed for about four years with all of the injuries. Getting non-tendered and then making my way back to the White Sox, proving that I could still pitch at a high level and eventually signing a long-term contract with the Yankees, makes me grateful. Going through all of that adversity made me the pitcher that is sitting here today at Yankee Stadium.”

Pulling off the track and into a pit stop is an accepted part of motorsports, but in baseball, having to shut it down brings doubters to the forefront.

Unfortunately for Rodón, he has had to deal with more injury-related misfortune in 2023. Before he could find his “area of comfort” in pinstripes, Rodón suffered a left forearm muscle strain in Spring Training, which was followed by tightness in his back. The combination of injuries cost Rodón the first several months of his debut season with the Yankees.

But Rodón has worked tirelessly to get back on the hill, with the hopes of bolstering the pitching rotation during the second half of the season. He has also maintained a positive attitude despite hearing his fair share of criticism regarding his reliability.

After a simulated 29-pitch start against his teammates in early June, Rodón was anxious for more.

“The velocity was there,” he told reporters at Yankee Stadium. “I felt good. I feel like I can get more work out of facing an opponent rather than people on my own team.”

When Rodón gets the chance to toe the rubber in a real game, it will no doubt bring him back to the mindset he had when he first put on the pinstripes back in December.

“The biggest thing for me was that I have never been part of an organization that put out a winning team perennially or that was committed to doing so,” Rodón said. “Coming to the Bronx, I knew all of the expectations, all of the pressures, but being a New York Yankee means having a chance to win. I’ll take on all of the pressure knowing that I have a chance to win a championship every year.”

For a group that has been to the postseason six straight years, making it to the ALCS three times but not getting over the hump in any of those series, Rodón’s presence -- first at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Florida, and more recently in the Bronx -- brings high hopes for a return to October glory.

“He’s the best lefty in the game,” Severino said. “He’s a power lefty, and that’s something we haven’t had. I want to watch him compete in the playoffs. He has so much energy. To see that in October, especially in New York, that would be special. There’s not a team in baseball that would want to face him in a playoff game.”

When speaking about Rodón in Spring Training, Cole was mindful of his teammate’s injury, but it hardly dimmed his excitement about having the southpaw in the rotation with him.

“He’s a really great competitor,” Cole said. “He’s got nasty stuff. You have to be a bulldog to get through the stuff he’s had to deal with. That trait shows up in the way he goes about his work, and it’s the way he’s turned his career around. He got to the top of the leaderboard and the peak of great pitching. You’re never going to question whether he wants the ball or if he wants to keep going in the face of any type of adversity. His tenacity inspires the rest of the guys in the rotation, including me.”

Alfred Santasiere III is the editor-in-chief of Yankees Magazine. This story appears in the July 2023 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.