TWICE AS NICE:Alex Rodriguez blasts his second homer of the game off James Shields in the sixth inning of the Yankees’ 6-2 win last night in St. Petersburg. (AP)
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Maybe the rest of the Yankees weren’t struggling quite as bad as their right fielder, but they were getting there. Poor Nick Swisher had come down with an intestinal virus, and we can leave it at that, maybe tell you that he looked every bit as weather-beaten as he felt.
But by the top of the fourth inning, there were plenty of sympathy pains inside the Yankees dugout. By the top of the fourth inning the Rays had jumped in front 1-0, had gotten the bulk of the 27,123 inside Tropicana Field on their side, and had undoubtedly started the Yankees muttering to themselves again.
Then Mark Teixeira led off the inning, hit a harmless pop down the left-field line that should have fallen untouched given the way the Rays over-shift him. And yet here came Evan Longoria, racing over, skidding through the visiting bullpen pitcher’s mound, snaring the ball before it hit the turf . . . and whatever bile was rising in Yankees’ stomachs suddenly started to inch north toward their throats.
It was happening again.
“I don’t want to say this was a must-win for us,” manager Joe Girardi said later on, “but it was about as close as a game in May can be.”
And this is where Alex Rodriguez walked into the picture. Rodriguez had been drowning for weeks. He had been working relentlessly with hitting coach Kevin Long, putting in long hours trying to reverse a slump that had dipped his average below .250 and yielded but one home run in May. The work had yielded little. Only one night earlier he had looked lost, three strikeouts rendering him a puzzled mess as he walked back to the dugout each time.
James Shields was on the mound for Tampa Bay, and he was rolling through the Yankees’ batting order, and after starting Rodriguez with two balls he came back with two strikes, and then A-Rod fouled off a fifth pitch. And then . . .
“And then,” Brett Gardner said, “you remember what it feels like when you see him really get a hold of a ball.”
It was gone in an eyeblink, one of his quintessential, ferocious blasts. Everywhere you looked, you saw relieved Yankees: jumping from the bench, rounding the basepaths, greeting him at home plate. It was only a tie-game, sure. They wouldn’t take the lead for good until two innings later, when Rodriguez added a bookend blast that broke the 1-1 tie, propelling the Yankees to a 6-2 win that snuffed out a six-game losing streak.
Afterward, it wasn’t just Girardi who expressed how important this game was; throughout the clubhouse, the message was clear: It might just be 40 games into the schedule, not even quite at the quarter pole, but there had to be a line drawn somewhere in the infield dirt.
“Desperation,” was the word Rodriguez used, and it wouldn’t be a terrible stretch to say it applied not only to the team in a macro sense but the player in micro. Certainly Rodriguez hasn’t been alone in contributing to the Yankees’ week of misery, two losses to the Royals and three to the Red Sox and another to the Rays on Monday night that had pushed them three games out of first into a virtual tie with the Red Sox and Blue Jays.
Is it too early in the season to worry about the standings? Maybe. But a loss last night would have dropped the Yankees into fourth place behind the washed-out Sox and Jays. And there wasn’t anyone in the room who wanted to ponder the possibility of that heading north to Baltimore last night.
So yes: It was good that the Yankees could turn to Rodriguez last night, even better that his bat was equal to the challenge, and it will be even more helpful if the positive strides he took last night can translate to an old-fashioned A-Rod tear. He generally treats Camden Yards as his own private playground. And he has been known to rise to a Subway Series occasion or two.
“It’s one game,” Rodriguez said, “but I’d like to believe it’s the start of something good.”
For him. For the team. It was a nice starting block. An important one, too.