Carlos Rodon’s ugly moment, Yankees’ disastrous stretch doesn’t have to define them

This doesn’t have to be a symbol, it really doesn’t. Carlos Rodon doesn’t have to be Jack McDowell, who was a very good pitcher for 12 major-league seasons (and in truth was mostly very good in his one year as a Yankee), but whose time in New York will forever be remembered for the evening of July 18, 1995.

That was the night McDowell was slaughtered by his old team, the White Sox, allowing 11 hits and nine runs in 4 ²/₃ innings, and his fifth-inning departure was greeted by a torrent of boos from 21,188 fans at old Yankee Stadium.

McDowell responded with a single-finger salute.

Middle, not index.

And headline writers fell over themselves trying to be the first to rush “YANKEE FLIPPER!” into 128-point boldface type.

Twenty-eight years and one day later, in the midst of a lousy outing against the Angels in Anaheim, Rodon walked off the field after mimicking his first inning — a walk followed by a two-run homer — in the second.

There were a lot of Yankees fans among the 39,141 at Anaheim Stadium on Wednesday, as there had been for all three games of the series.

Some of them were behind the Yankees’ dugout.

Some of them booed Rodon.

Rodon answered with a kiss.

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Now let’s try and be a little reasonable about this, OK?

Rodon is going to have a lot of opportunities to make that silly moment less than a footnote of his Yankees career.

He’s signed for five more years after this one and by all accounts, it seems like his makeup ought to be a fit for New York and the high-octane energy that perpetually surrounds the Yankees.

He doesn’t have to be McDowell.

He doesn’t have to be Javy “Thumbs Down” Baez.

But Rodon does have to pitch better.

The Yankees do have to play better.

This 7-3 loss to the Angels capped a 1-5 road trip, kept them in last place in the AL East, and added another listless chapter to an increasingly lifeless season.

The kiss was just the cherry on top of this distastefully stale cake.

Bad moment.

Bad look.

And Rodon knew it.

“A fan was angry,” Rodon said, quickly adding, “as they should be. They kicked my teeth in today. It wasn’t good.

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“It was the best reaction I could give [although] better not to give a reaction I guess. I blew a kiss, unfortunately.”

Good for Rodon.

Owning bad moments helps minimize bad moments.

So will improving on his three-game start as a Yankee, which now reads this way: 0-3, 7.36 ERA, 11 strikeouts and nine walks in 14 ²/₃ innings.

If Yankees fans could stomach making it to the end Wednesday night, they probably far preferred the sight of Tommy Kahnle taking out the frustration of the day and the season on a dugout fan, an old-school, O’Neill-ian snap that, at the least, showed a breath of life still exists on this roster.

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And manager Aaron Boone, at long last, finally smashed his rose-colored glasses (metaphorically, anyway) by finally speaking in plain, frank, blunt terms about his baseball team. For a day, at least, Pollyanna is dead.

“We stink right now,” Boone said. “I acknowledge that.”

And that was just the appetizer.

“We’re not very good right now,” Boone said. “We understand that. This is a low point for us. We have to deal with it, acknowledge where we’re at, compete our ass off Friday and believe that’s the day we’ll turn this around.”

If there’s one consolation to this lost week out west, it’s that the rest of the AL East scuffled also, so the Yankees have not been completely left for dead.

They get the Royals starting Friday at Yankee Stadium, and Kansas City is as splendid a Homecoming guest as a team could ask for.

If the Royals were a college football team, they’d get $2 million just to show up.

But baseball is a whimsical thing.

The Athletics beat the Red Sox two out of three this week. Bad teams win their share of games.

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Especially when they run into a team that’s supposed to be good, but is playing as bad as it gets right now.

That’s the Yankees, who still can’t hit, who still botch innings with poor decisions, who surrendered 11 walks Wednesday and struck out 42 times in the three games — without having to face Shohei Ohtani.

“We’re nowhere near where we want to be,” Boone said.

But he also went back to his old standby, and he happens to be right: The Yankees still have their fate in their own hands.

First place in the East may be a bit of a chore, but they’re still only a good week away from hopping back into the wild-card picture.

They get three in The Bronx this weekend against a team on a 117-loss pace.

Much like Rodon can make his kiss disappear from his permanent record, the Yankees can make this woeful stretch seem like a bad dream. But they have to start winning.

They have to start playing better.

And maybe it really wouldn’t hurt to throw the occasional glove at a dugout fan rather than blowing a kiss at a box-seat fan.