00:00The Yankees kicked off their Grapefruit League schedule here in Sarasota on Friday
00:04and the biggest impression I took away from this game was seeing Elmer Rodriguez pitch.
00:08He's one of the club's top pitching prospects.
00:11Notable stage here, you know, it's only Grapefruit League but it's the opener
00:15and it was facing an Orioles lineup that was pretty close to what should be their opening day lineup.
00:19And he handled them pretty well.
00:21Threw three shutout innings, scattered three singles, struck out one,
00:25kind of flashed a six-pitch arsenal, was able to kind of, you know,
00:29dice up opponents in different ways, but really also just leaned on getting outs to be on the ground.
00:33Seven of his nine outs were on the ground.
00:35He showed stuff-wise, you know, the Yankees were interested to see what he looked like,
00:38how he handled the environment.
00:41Just kind of his poise, both Aaron Boone and pitching coach Matt Blake said that they were impressed by it.
00:46You know, you never know how young guys kind of, you know, react to a stage like this,
00:50facing big league hitters for the first time.
00:52And they said they were impressed with how he handled it.
00:54It looked like he was under control, didn't make the moment too big.
00:56He finished last year in AAA.
00:58He's probably going to end up back, starting the year back there,
01:01assuming the Yankees get through camp with relatively full health.
01:03You know, him and Carlos LeGranje are their two top pitching prospects
01:06that have a lot of people in the organization excited.
01:09Rodriguez, who pitched here today, showed a lot of people why.
01:11He gets to see Carlos LeGranje tomorrow in the home opener.
01:14Spring debut tomorrow is Sam Brantfield.
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