I've not seen a better all-around player than Alec Rodriguez since the days when a younger Mickey Mantle did pretty much anything he wanted inside a stadium. The Mick was sheltered but still delivered. Alex Rodriguez is sheltered because the Yankee braintrust wants him to retire a Yankee, and take all of those records into Cooperstown as a Yankee. When he bats clean-up and meakly flails at a ball you or I could hit, Joe Torre keeps him there, instead of dropping him in the order until he rouses himself from one mysterious funk after another. Rodriguez acts like a man with woman-problems, plain and simple, but here's what Giambi had to say to him...
"...Giambi is quoted telling Rodriguez, "We're all rooting for you and we're behind you 100 percent, but you've got to get the big hit."
Rodriguez, according to Giambi's SI quotes, responded, "What do you mean? I've had five hits in Boston."
Giambi retorted, "You [freaking] call those hits? You had two [freaking] dinkers to rightfield and a ball that bounced over the third baseman. Look at how many pitches you missed.
"When you hit three, four or five [in the order], you have to get the big hits, especially if they're going to walk Bobby [Abreu] and me. I'll help you out until you get going. I'll look to drive in runs when they pitch around me, go after that 3-and-1 pitch that might be a ball. But if they're going to walk Bobby and me, you're going to have to be the guy."
So Giambi gives himself up and Rodriguez still doesn't get it. This is not to say that the Yanks should trade him. This is to say that it'd be nice to discover what it is that diminishes his talent on a regular basis nowadays.
No comments:
Post a Comment