Like most people who are really into baseball, I adore Fire Joe Morgan. Heck, I wish I had come up with it, simply so that there could have been a few more pro-Jeter articles and less "Jason Varitek is awesome!", heh. Anyway, though I will never be nearly as good as Fire Joe Morgan, I will attempt to do so with two articles by non-baseball writer extraordinaire, Gene Wojciechowski. The two articles are here and here. I decided to get some background info on Mr. W., so I went to Wikipedia, where I found:
Gene Wojciechowski is a sports columnist, best known for his work with ESPN.
Born in Salina, Kansas, he became a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine in January 1998, having worked as a football reporter for the network since 1992. He was named senior national sports columnist for ESPN in June 2005. He also has worked at the Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, and Denver Post. Wojciechowski graduated from the University of Tennessee, and he began his career as a sports writer covering college football and college basketball.
Do you notice something about that information? Yeah. It's that he didn't cover baseball. I'm gonna guess there's a reason for that, namely that he sucked at it. Anyway, let's start with the A-Rod article.
A-Rod Whiffing in First Series Opportunity
Yankees are in big trouble unless Rodriguez can recover from his 0-for-8, 6 K start
NEW YORK -- A-Rod to K-Rod?
Do you know there's like, an actual player nicknamed K-Rod? Because this confused me for a while when I was reading it the first time around.
That will be the knee-jerk reaction to Alex Rodriguez's World Series plunge into Oh-fer Land. And for once, the knee has a point.
No, no it doesn't. Because it was two darn good pitching performances, and it's TWO GAMES.
Scalding hot in the two previous rounds of this postseason, Rodriguez is now colder than those $10 draft beers they're selling at the Yankee Stadium concession stands. His numbers are boo-grade material: Eight at-bats. Zero hits. Six strikeouts.
Yeah, let's boo A-Rod after he pretty much single-handedly carried us through the first two rounds.
"It's eight at-bats," Rodriguez said. "I'm not concerned at all."
Guess who's being right and logical about this? If you guessed Woj, you're... wrong.
Rodriguez's New York Yankees overcame his non-production in Thursday night's 3-1 win in Game 2 against the Philadelphia Phillies, but how long can they survive with A-Rod flailing away at the plate? Answer: They can't.
I dunno, they got pretty far with some guys doing almost nothing, including the guy who actually led the AL in HR and RBI.
The Yankees salvaged a split at home, but not because of anything Rodriguez did. Yes, it's been only eight at-bats -- eight mostly gruesome at-bats.
Rodriguez has hit exactly one ball out of the infield -- a routine fly out to left. He has more K's in the World Series than he did in his previous 32 playoff at-bats against the Minnesota Twins and Los Angeles Angels this October (five).
He wasn't flailing away at shit like he was in 2006. Cliff Lee was really friggin' on; pretty much no one had good at-bats against him. Pedro was mostly on, and A-Rod at least had some pretty good at-bats against him. And at this point, who had good numbers on the Yankees?
So there's no other way to say it: He's been Nick Swisher-like since the Series began, nearly useless with that black Louisville Slugger in his gloved hands. Swisher and his .114 postseason got benched for Game 2 (about time)
Yeah, let's bench superior offensive players for inferior offensive players based on numbers from five years ago. And by Nick Swisher-like, do you mean unfairly attacked because of A LOW BATTING AVERAGE O NOS while getting on base a ton and hitting with quite a bit of pop? Because, at this point in the Series, A-Rod wasn't even doing that.
but Rodriguez stays in the lineup because (A) he's A-Rod and (B) the Yankees wouldn't be in the World Series without his combined 14 hits, .438 average, five home runs, 12 RBIs and 10 runs in the American League Division Series and AL Championship Series.
It's a little bit more nuanced than "he's A-Rod." But let's bench one of the best hitters in baseball because he had two shitty games against two excellent pitching performances. Ramiro Pena would have hit a home run off of Lee, I just know it!!!!!
"He got us here," said Jerry Hairston Jr., who replaced Swisher in Thursday night's lineup.
That's nice.
You're right, it is. Oh shit, you were being sarcastic.
But unless Rodriguez remembers how to hit, the Yankees aren't going to win their first World Series since 2000. The same offense that led the big leagues in home runs and runs has scored four times in two games against the Phillies. Keep that up and they can DVR the Phillies' victory parade next week.
And yet they still won one game. I guess the Yankees' victory over the Braves from 1996 doesn't count because the Braves actually outhit and outscored the Yankees. And again, it's not like the Yankee hitters were going crazy and A-Rod was sucking. If A-Rod had constantly been coming up with RISP and striking out, well, that might have made me a little more pissed off. But the two Phillies' pitchers' performances, up to this point, had been so good that the only way the Yankees scored were:
a. an error on a DP ball.
b. two solo HRs, one of which was off a pitch basically in the dirt.
c. Charlie Manuel being dumb and sending Pedro out for an inning too many.
There was no way Rodriguez could sustain a .438 average and the kind of power numbers he was putting up in the ALDS and ALCS. And the way Phillies starter Cliff Lee pitched in Game 1, A-Rod was just part of the conga line of Yankees batters who could do zilch.
Reason!!! Logic!!!!
But Thursday evening's game was against 38-year-old Pedro Martinez. Speed guns don't even bother measuring his fastball anymore. Plus, Martinez was battling flu-like symptoms.
Martinez struck A-Rod out twice. Reliever Ryan Madson struck him out once.
Mentioning his age and the fact that he's got a not-great fastball means pretty much nothing. Pedro might not be throwing however fast he threw when he was with the Sox, but the guy knows how to pitch. Did you see what he did against the Dodgers? Did you actually watch him pitch against the Yankees? He was really good. And are you going to mention that Jeter struck out three times, too?
A night earlier, Lee struck him out three times. Four times this season, Rodriguez has had three-strikeout games. Three of those K-fests have come against the Phillies, once in the regular season.
"The fact that I'm oh-for-the-Series and we're 1-1 and the guys picked me up today makes me feel really good about going into Game 3," he said.
Oh look, A-Rod making sense.
That's the Smiley Face perspective, and it makes a lot of sense.
You're right, it does. I don't know why you're being so cynical about it.
But the ultracritical, ultranervous Yankees fan perspective flashes back to A-Rod's postseason no-shows in 2006 and 2007. Rodriguez "hit" .071 with zero homers and nary an RBI in the playoff elimination to Detroit, and .267 with one home run and one RBI in the elimination to Cleveland.
A-Rod had a terrible Detroit series, batting .071 with a .205 OPS (YIKES). He was terrible, but he wasn't alone. Cano had a .267 OPS. Sheffield, .167. But what really killed the Yankees in the 2006 postseason was the pitching. Detroit's ERA for that series was 3.60. The Yankees', 5.56.
The Cleveland series was not A-Rod's fault AT ALL. He batted .267, sure. Melky batted .188. Jeter, .176. Matsui, .182. Posada, who was as insanely hot as A-Rod that season, .133. Once again, though, it was the pitching that doomed the Yankees. Cleveland's ERA was 3.41. The Yankees, 5.89. Wang, the Yankees' ace, had two starts, where he gave them only 5.2 innings, giving up 14 R, 12 ER, in those innings, for a hideous 19.06 ERA. His WHIP was over three and he walked more guys than he struck out. No, this doesn't mean Wang is a choker. It means he had a really bad two games.
A-Rod was awesome in the 2009 ALDS. He carried the team offensively, for sure, along with Jeets. But Jeter had a 1.467 OPS and Posada, 1.348 in the Detroit series. If AJ Burnett and Andy Pettitte imploded like Randy Johnson and Jaret Wright in 2006 or Wang in 2007 did in their starts, the Yankees wouldn't have won the series.
This October was different because A-Rod's bat said it was different. He was 5-for-11 against the Twins, 9-for-21 against the Angels. He was unstoppable. Now he has trouble putting a ball in play.
Psht he was not unstoppable. If he was TRULY unstoppable, he would have been 11-for-11 and 21-for-21!!!! Anything less than perfection with A-Rod is NOT OKAY!!!!
"I think they're being careful," said Rodriguez of the Phillies' pitching strategy toward him. "But overall I'm just glad that I got picked up today by the boys in front of me and behind me. … I'm going to be fine."
Mark Teixeira, who hits in front of A-Rod in the 3-spot, tied the score in the fourth inning with a 414-foot homer. Hideki Matsui, who bats fifth, put the Yankees ahead in the sixth with a 9-iron home run swing to right field. Rodriguez played the role of dugout cheerleader.
Oh look, A-Rod's right again. Also, oh no, he was a "dugout cheerleader," that's so... awful? I mean, when those things were happening, AJ Burnett and Mariano Rivera were in the dugout cheering, and they were probably the most responsible for the Yankees winning that game.
The Yankees got a shutdown performance from starter A.J. Burnett. Given the situation (the possibility of a 2-0 Series deficit), Burnett's seven-inning, four-hit, nine-strikeout performance was his best outing of the season. Throw in Teixeira's and Matsui's clutch dingers and Mariano Rivera's two-inning save, and the Yankees head to Philly with a must-have split.
"Now we've got a five-game Series," Rodriguez said.
He hopes. As good as the Yankees' lineup is, it revolves around A-Rod, their cleanup hitter.
What do you mean "he hopes"? They're not gonna be like "well A-Rod hasn't had a hit yet, therefore we're actually giving Game 2 to the Phillies." And the Yankee lineup is so ridiculous, it could generally survive a funk by A-Rod for a couple of games. Which, oh yeah, that's all this turned out to be.
In the 2009 regular season, Rodriguez put up huge numbers after three-strikeout games -- a combined 8-for-10 with five RBIs. But in his first-ever World Series, Rodriguez has followed one three-strikeout performance with another three-strikeout night.
"It's two games," Hairston said of A-Rod's struggles. "It really is. … The next two games, he could go 8-for-10. That's how good he is."
A-Rod in the two games after this: 2-for-6, .333/.600/1.000/1.600, 1 HR, 1 2B, 3 RBI. I'd say all of those RBIs were pretty "clutch" too; one basically woke the Yankees up when Hamels had been cruising, and one was the game-winner in a tie game in the top of the ninth. Obviously these are all small sample sizes, but do they meet your oh-so-lofty standards, Gene?
Right now, we've seen how bad he is. It is a familiar theme, a theme Rodriguez tried to distance himself from as he stepped in front of his locker after the game. I asked him about his Game 1 and 2 difficulties. He ignored the question.
Oh, THAT'S why you're writing this article - A-Rod ignored your rude-ass question so you got all annoyed and decided to smear him. I get it. Plus, he's a Yankee. Booooo, Yankees!!!!!
"Just a great win overall," he said. "Just a great win. Great team effort. Guys swing the bats in front of me and behind me. Story of the day is A.J. Burnett."
This is a totally meh answer, but if Jeter said something this bland, would anyone give a shit and try to psychoanalyze it?
Burnett might have been the story of Thursday night, but Rodriguez's inability to get a hit -- a squibber through the hole, a bloop, a seeing-eye something … anything -- is fast becoming the story of this Series. Not only is a world championship at stake here but also a personal legacy.
No, it was part of the story of the first two games. That's because the biggest part of the story of the first two games was the excellent pitching.
"Everything right now is magnified," A-Rod said.
He was talking about Teixeira and the importance of that fourth-inning home run. But with each lost at-bat, Rodriguez's failures receive greater inspection.
Hit, or else. It's that simple.
You're right. So, are you gonna write an article about how A-Rod is godly based on his Game 3-6 performance? No? How utterly unsurprising.
This post is long, so I'll cover the next one in a separate one.
