Tyler Austin and Aaron Judge, called up from New York’s AAA affiliate Scranton/Wilkes-Barre shortly after Rodriguez was officially released, each hit a solo home run in their first Major League Baseball at-bat, made all the more impressive in that they were respectively batting 8th and 9th in the lineup.
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Masahiro Tanaka won his ninth game for NY.
“We haven’t really talked about it”, Mattingly said. “I think it’s good for them to be here today to see that these guys were young, these guys performed at a high level and they had a long run”.
As for Rodriguez himself, he said in a post-game press conference that he had been hoping to hit a double into the rightfield gap, and when he was asked whether or not “in his heart” he’d played his last baseball game, he said that the game “would be a memory I owned forever”.
Rodriguez grew up in Miami and resides in the area.
“I always liked Alex”, Mattingly said. “He was never afraid of the field and always wanted to play every day”.
Mattingly acknowledged the Marlins might be in the market for help at first base.
The Yankees hit five home runs, the most anyone has hit against Tampa Bay all season, in an 8-4 mashing of the Rays, 46-69 on the season. They’ve been without starter Justin Bour since July 2 because of an ankle injury as they bid for their first playoff berth in 13 years.
Rodriguez played shortstop and third base but has spent little time in the field since 2013.
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“There’s no reason he couldn’t play first”. “He has the ability to do a lot of things”. A 14-time All-Star and three-time AL MVP, A-Rod has 3,115 hits and his 2,086 RBIs are second to Aaron’s 2,297 since RBIs became an official statistic. He has 696 home runs, fourth on the career list behind Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714).
