Simple Yankees lineup adjustment fuels offensive explosion to back Carlos Rodón

When a lineup goes seamlessly around the bases like commuters using Apple Pay on the New York City subway, it's tough to pinpoint just one change that made all the difference. But for the Yankees on Tuesday, it was hard not to notice that a much-needed change immediately preceded an explosion in Baltimore, just one day after a whiff-filled effort against a pitcher in Tomoyuki Sugano who doesn't really do that very often.

The 35-year-old Sugano may have found his groove in the opener of this series, but he identified the wrong team that was about to "get it going" in the postgame. Instead, the Yankees responded to Baltimore promoting Kyle Gibson by unleashing absolute fury from the top of the lineup.

It was a top of the lineup that looked a little different than it did on Monday night.

The resurgent Trent Grisham led off and fed into Aaron Judge, but breakout rookie first baseman Ben Rice swapped into the No. 3 hole instead of the scuffling Cody Bellinger, who sported a 61 OPS+ entering play on Tuesday. Bellinger was bumped down to No. 5, while Paul Goldschmidt - who had the second-highest average in MLB behind Judge at one point last week - was entrusted to protect him.

One game in? "No one better." Goldy, ironically, was the only one of the first five Yankees not to homer to start the top of the first, as Bellinger capped off an all-time example of immediate dividends.

Yankees' lineup, with Cody Bellinger hitting fifth, led to an offensive explosion behind a brilliant Carlos Rodón vs. the Orioles

Bellinger will be better than he's been, even if he never ascends to All-Star level or league-average offensively. He's already brought solid center field defense to the table. Now, a little bit of offensive stability from a slightly lower-pressure spot in the order is exactly what the Yankees need to see from their offseason acquisition.

On Tuesday, everything clicked. That included Carlos Rodón on the bump, who got more than enough wiggle room and still flirted with perfection anyhow.

By the time the Orioles broke through in the sixth inning for a single run, Rodón was working on 18 1/3 innings without an earned run dating back to his last speed bump at home against the Giants. "Perfect game or just normal brilliance" is the kind of Rodón debate Yankee fans would much rather be having.

The Yankees' intention was to get Rodón out of the spotlight this offseason by bringing in Max Fried and dropping him to No. 3 in the rotation; that plan didn't work out. Hopefully, their plan to wake up Bellinger by deemphasizing him works out a bit more seamlessly. So far, so good.