Carlos Rodon and Luis Severino are scheduled to start Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, against the Nationals.
The duo has not been the 1-2 punch behind Gerrit Cole the Yankees expected before the season and instead have been among the many reasons the team is in the cellar of the AL East.
Severino, due to become a free agent following the season, will look to show some signs of life before hitting the open market for the first time.
He has a 7.98 ERA this season, as well as a 14.18 ERA in his past four appearances — but he won’t be the Yankees’ problem after 2023.
Rodon is a different story, having signed a six-year, $162 million deal with the Yankees last winter in their biggest free-agent splash outside of Aaron Judge.
On Sunday, Rodon called his performance in his first season with the Yankees “a pile of s–t.”
An AL scout said Rodon’s stuff hasn’t been as bad as his numbers would indicate, but he hasn’t come close to last year’s results.
“I don’t know if it’s a combination of the health stuff early on and the new environment and the expectations, but he’s just been off,’’ the scout said, referencing Rodon’s forearm strain and back stiffness that plagued him in the spring. “The put-away stuff hasn’t been there.”
Tuesday will be Rodon’s first outing since his most recent stint on the injured list, this one due to a left hamstring strain.
He last pitched on Aug. 6 and left in the third inning of another rough outing with the injury.
Rodon has been bad versus righties (.826 OPS) and worse against lefties (.877), bad at Yankee Stadium (6.11 ERA in four starts) and worse on the road (9.64 ERA in two starts).
The main culprit has been his four-seam fastball, which was among the best in the game each of the previous two seasons, when Rodon starred with the White Sox and then the Giants.
This year, it’s been a below-average pitch with an expected slugging percentage of .554, compared with .347 last year and .366 in 2021.
“You can tell that this year, it’s different,’’ Rodon told The Post’s Greg Joyce last month. “The hitters are hunting me, they’re hunting my strengths and what I do best, and they’re doing damage. I fall behind in counts, they’re sitting fastball, I throw fastball. They know that.”
Rodon’s slider, another weapon that was extremely effective most of his career, has also been a problem, although advanced metrics indicate he’s had some bad luck with that pitch.
Anthony Volpe, who homered Sunday, enters Tuesday with an OPS of .691, the highest it’s been since early July.
Since June 21, Volpe has an .805 OPS after getting off to a rough start with a .614 OPS in his first 73 games.
Jasson Dominguez was named Eastern League Player of the Week on Monday after going 13-for-28 with five doubles and a pair of homers over a six-game span.
That followed a three-game hitless stretch, but the 20-year-old has hit well at Double-A for most of the last month.
Dominguez is ranked the organization’s No. 2 prospect — behind fellow outfielder Spencer Jones at High-A Hudson Valley — by MLB Pipeline.
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