Mental, physical battles molded Carlos Rodón and his wife Ashley

In a place like Covington, Ind., everybody knows one another.

With a population of less than 3,000 people, it’s a tight-knit community, said Carlos Rodón, who resides in the small town despite being born in Miami and choosing employment in New York City. “Everybody knows everyone’s business,” the Yankees pitcher continued, “whether you like it or not, for good and for bad.”

Recently, the bad has included tragedy.

“We’ve had a few people that have kind of gone down the wrong road and made some choices,” Rodón told the Daily News as he searched for appropriate words. “They decided to end their lives.”

One such person, a younger boy, grew up a baseball player and fan. He frequented a youth group run by Rodón’s cousin, a pastor, but Rodón didn’t want to disclose specifics out of respect. Rodón’s wife, Ashley — who has lived in Covington her whole life — added that her family has lost close ones to suicide.

Those sad stories, as well as difficulties in their own lives, have made the couple think more about mental health.

“It’s just something that people need to be aware of,” Ashley told The News. “Mental health, it’s so real to the people who struggle with it. If you don’t struggle with it, it’s a blessing, but it’s something that when people are crying for help, you have to be aware of how serious it is.”

The News broached this sensitive subject with the husband and wife after noticing Rodón participated in a mental health PSA produced by Major League Baseball. The video is part of a larger initiative, MLB Together, a new social responsibility platform focused on helping communities and fans.

The video also features Minnesota’s Carlos Correa, Boston’s Kenley Jansen and, among others, Detroit’s Austin Meadows, who has been outspoken about his mental health.

White Sox closer Liam Hendriks, a cancer survivor and MLB Together ambassador, hopes the program encourages more fans to talk about what they’re feeling. The same goes for athletes.

“We have a lot of pride,” Hendriks, a former teammate of Rodón’s, told The News. “We tend to not want help and we tend to think that reaching out for help tends to be less manly or puts us in a bad light, which couldn’t be further from the truth. It shows a lot of courage to reach out to people and tell others that you’re struggling.”

If Rodón is being honest, the PSA is just something he volunteered for when the Yankees sought a representative for the video. But over the course of long chats with him and Ashley, it became clear that the theme of mental health began popping up in their lives long before the tragedies in Covington.

Rodón recalled how, as a member of the White Sox, he started wearing shirts from Happiness Project, a brand dedicated to shattering the stigmas associated with mental health. The 30-year-old, who pitched for the Giants last season, also remembered listening intently when mental health consultant Drew Robinson spoke of his survived suicide attempt. Robinson, a former big leaguer, lost his right eye to a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2020, but he made it back to affiliated ball before retiring.

And then there are the trials and tribulations that have tested Rodón and Ashley directly. The two have fought their own mental and physical battles, which shaped their lives and Rodón’s career long before a pair of injuries delayed his Yankees debut.

As Ashley put it, “We had a rough, rough few years.”

* * *

Ashley met her future partner in 2014 while working in North Carolina over summer break. Rodón had just wrapped up his junior season at NC State and had a first-round payday coming from the White Sox, who drafted him third overall.

“We were just kind of two crazy kids who made it work,” Ashley said, but not without hardships along the way.

Rodón rocketed through Chicago’s system and, at age 22, debuted less than a year after being drafted. He made 51 starts for the Sox between 2015 and 2016, but he missed significant time over the next two seasons thanks to biceps bursitis and his shoulder, which required arthroscopic surgery in September 2017.

“All I wanted to do was play and figure out how to get back on the field,” Rodón said.

Added Ashley: “He never had to face a lot of adversity throughout college. It was always The Carlos Rodón Show. And then we got to The Show, and it became a little more turbulent.”

And not just for Rodón.

While he returned for 20 starts after tying the knot with Ashley in 2018, she suffered two miscarriages in the months that followed their wedding. They were expecting a boy from the first pregnancy, but a doctor’s appointment revealed that the baby did not have a heartbeat after about 12 weeks.

Ashley found out about her second pregnancy on Mother’s Day. That miscarriage came much earlier — and on the same day a line drive struck Rodón in the head during a rehab start. They both ended up in emergency rooms that night.

“You spend your whole life being told how easy it is to get pregnant,” Ashley said. “How you need to be careful, and they teach you this in schools, and abstinence. Then you become an adult and you try to have kids and you think it’s just going to be this easy, no problems kind of situation. And for us, it wasn’t that.”

The losses brought about Ashley’s mental struggles, or what she called the “tougher part of my life,” as she had always dreamed of being a mom and had begun to imagine a future with her unborn son. But Rodón did whatever he could to support his wife, and they leaned on their Christian faith and family to guide them through.

Ashley also found strength in talking about her miscarriages, and speaking to other women with similar experiences proved rewarding. She quickly became involved with fertility issues and causes, including fundraising work for the Chicago Coalition for Family Building.

“I’m super open about it because a lot of people have a hard time being open about it,” Ashley said. “So [I’m] just spreading the awareness of how common it is.”

Ashley revealed another pregnancy on social media in January 2019. She wrote that she began sobbing when an ultrasound showed a healthy, beating heart, but added, “I won’t be truly calm until I am holding our baby in my arms.”

As the weeks passed, Ashley excitedly and proudly shared pictures and videos of her bump, ultrasounds, a pink gender reveal and customized, baby-sized White Sox apparel. The child they had waited for was going to watch Rodón in style.

But as Ashley prayed and posted, another significant injury awaited Rodón.

* * *

On May 1, 2019, Rodón left a start after 3.2 innings with what the White Sox initially called left elbow inflammation. He underwent Tommy John surgery on May 15.

Having already gone through one surgery, Rodón said “everything sucked” when he found out he needed his ulnar collateral ligament repaired. He got down on himself after the diagnosis, and he wondered if he would ever pitch again.

“I shouldn’t minimize it,” Rodón said of his mental battles, as he didn’t want to compare his dark thoughts to those of someone in more dire circumstances. “That’s minimal compared to what a lot of people deal with.”

But he acknowledged that, “It hit me hard. My wife noticed that I was not who I was during that time, and I struggled. I struggled a lot mentally, for sure. It was hard.”

Ashley described an internal voice in her husband’s head, one that wouldn’t relent when it came to criticisms and self-doubt.

“I just remember when he was really in the mental health struggles,” she said. “It feels like it was yesterday, even though it was so long ago, because he was in such a tough spot. I knew every day I had to wake up and intentionally be the rock of our family, put a smile on my face, do whatever I could to keep his mind off baseball.”

Thankfully, Ashley had help on the way.

Willow Mo’orea Rodón arrived on July 14, two months after her father had Tommy John surgery. After two miscarriages, Ashley called her daughter’s birth the best day of her life.

Rodón, meanwhile, shifted his outlook.

“Her being born, that’s where my perspective came from,” he said. “I had the opportunity to become a dad and rehab at the same time, so I was blessed. The Chicago White Sox treated me the right way and they let me stay in Chicago and rehab there and be a dad. That’s kind of what got me out of it.

“In that time, to be honest, I was like who really cares about baseball? I care about my daughter, and that helped me get through that whole rehab process.”

Ashley said that Willow’s birth “saved” Rodón from the “void” he was in.

“He would agree that if it weren’t for our daughter being born, it would have been even worse than it was — which it wasn’t great,” she said. “It’s very scary to think about what it would have been like without her. And so that was awesome.”

The Rodóns now have three healthy children, and they can’t wait to see their dad pitch in pinstripes for the first time.

* * *

Rodón’s return from Tommy John came with frustrations, too.

He made it back in time for four games — plus one postseason appearance — during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, only to allow nine earned runs over 7.2 innings.

Instead of paying Rodón a raise through arbitration, the White Sox non-tendered him that December.

“I understood. I get the business side of baseball, and I understand I sucked. It wasn’t good. Like I could throw hard, but I didn’t perform,” Rodón said. “I somewhat expected it in the back of my mind. That kind of turned me on, lit a fire under me, made me who I am now.”

Chicago ultimately retained Rodón on a one-year, $3 million deal, a massive bargain. The non-tender fueled Rodón to his first All-Star nod in 2021, and he recorded a 2.37 ERA over 24 starts and 132.2 innings that year. He also threw a no-hitter on April 14.

“It’s just been such an up and down ride from 2017 on,” Rodón said. “Then I showed back up in 2021, and that’s kind of where I broke out and figured out who I was as a pitcher.”

Rodón parlayed his performance into a two-year, $44 million contract with the Giants, which included an opt-out.

An All-Star once again in 2022, he exercised that opt-out after logging a 2.88 ERA while setting career-highs with 31 starts and 178 innings. That two-year stretch led to a six-year, $162 million contract from the Yankees last December.

After all the injuries and concerns over a premature end to his career, that generational wealth is a point of pride for Rodón.

“I threw like friggin’ 10 innings in 2020 and then proceeded to throw 132 the next year. And then I had to prove to people again that I could still pitch. Then I threw 178 last year. Obviously, right now, I’m on the shelf,” Rodón said. “But I went from making $3 million to $22 million to $27 million. I don’t know how many people have done that. And I’m not trying to sound conceited, but mentally, to be able to go through all that, I don’t think anybody expected it.”

Indeed, Rodón has been on the shelf, as a forearm strain quickly ended his spring training before a barking back postponed his Yankees debut further.

But Ashley called these injuries “nagging” compared to the more “drastic” issues Rodón dealt with in the past. With those experiences behind him — and life providing some clarity — the southpaw found the mental side of rehab easier this time around.

Spending the early stages of the process around teammates — instead of staying by the Yankees’ complex in Tampa the entire time — helped, too.

“They do that with cancer patients, right? And people who are really sick,” Yankees ace Gerrit Cole told The News. “They break up the monotony of it by trying to bring happiness around. He’s not around his teammates down there, and he is around his teammates up here. He’s getting to know the area, getting to settle into what’s going to be his home for the next five or six years. All those things can have a positive effect on his recovery.”

Rodón also said that he doesn’t use social media, something that took a negative toll on him in the past. “It’s not good for anybody,” he said, so he hasn’t seen posts from fans who accused him of stealing money or questioned if he would pitch this year.

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But when told of such comments, Rodón understood where those people were coming from — even if they don’t understand what he’s been through.

“Those people can say what they want” he said. “It’s nothing against them. Like they might not know what they’re talking about. As a fan, I understand why they get upset. This is your favorite team, and you spend all this money on a player and you expect them to perform, and I expect myself to perform as well… I want to be on the mound. That’s a given. That’s an answer that you would expect, but I don’t know if fans really, truly understand how we mean that, and what it takes.

“And that’s not a jab at fans and that’s not a jab at [media], but it’s just the truth. That’s the truth. You don’t, and you never will. Because you never will be in our shoes. I’m not trying to be rude. But sometimes the truth hurts, and vice versa for me. You can talk crap all you want. But the best thing I ever did was the social media aspect of it, I just got rid of it.”

While things took longer than expected, Rodón’s first Yankees start is right around the corner.

He’s fresh off three successful minor league outings and is scheduled to throw against the Orioles at Yankee Stadium on July 7. He’ll continue building his pitch count up at the major league level, but the Bronx faithful will finally get to see their team’s biggest offseason addition in action for the Yankees.

So will Ashley, who will be in attendance and cheering her husband on after another obstacle.

“He’s handled this one pretty darn well,” she said. “He’s eager to get back.”