Yankees manager Joe Girardi said he’d only start Alex Rodriguez in Thursday’s series finale against Boston Red Sox knuckleballer Steven Wright – a decision that clearly rankled A-Rod. It sounded like a honest request from fans in one of baseball’s oldest and most heated rivalries.
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Rick Porcello continued to dominate at Fenway Park with eight solid innings and then Matt Barnes cleaned up a mess created by closer Craig Kimbrel for Boston. It will probably cause irreparable damage to the relationship between A-Rod and the club with which he is most identified.
This is a hell of a way to kick off a farewell tour, isn’t it?
In the NY Penn League, the Vermont Lake Monsters losing streak is now at nine games after a 3-0 loss to the Brooklyn Cyclones in New York last night.
Drew Pomeranz takes the mound for the Red Sox against Yankees starter Nathan Eovaldi.
How many swings might A-Rod will get in his final days as a Yankee? For Mariano Rivera’s last game in 2013, it was $237.89.
“I know he wants to play”, Girardi said.
“Joe believes he’s done”, one source told me. “And he’s still trying to win these games”.
“If I was feeling this way, certainly other people would”, he said. So I’ll sit down and talk to him.
A-Rod’s statements Tuesday after he learned he was not in the starting lineup exposed that for the lie it was.
Red Sox fan Jason Bolduc said he was disappointed not to receive the bobblehead, but understood the team’s decision. “(Girardi) has his opinion; I have mine.
The average resale-market asking price for Alex Rodriguez’s finale as a Yankee Friday night was $211.73 as of Wednesday, up 178.9 percent from before the team’s Sunday announcement but down significantly from the first hours after his departure date was set.
Alex Rodriguez is about to be released, and he knows it. “I’m sure I’m going to hear it, but I’ve got to do what I think is best”. There have been many things going on. When the ball hits the yellow line, it’s a home run, and that was the call on the field. They offered him the advisor/instructor job, they agreed to let him play Friday, and Girardi stood at the podium Sunday and told everyone “if he wants to play in every game, I’ll find a way”.
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You can point at Rodriguez’s many transgressions – the two PED admissions, the 162-game suspension, the ball slap, the fake “I got it!” shout, the various verbal contradictions and hypocrisies, the times when he could be condescending and even rude – as justification for the way he has been treated at the end of his Yankees career. I mean, who wouldn’t want to play?
