Johnny Damon smiled at the question: Where would the Yankees be without Alex Rodriguez?
After a few seconds, Damon said, “About 25 games out.”
The Yankees got to see what life without A-Rod looks like the past few days, when he’s been in and out of the lineup with a strained hamstring. It’s something they hope is only temporary, a depressing end to a remarkable first half for the 31-year-old superstar.
After a 2006 season that featured his home fans booing him, teammates questioning him, and a move to the bottom of the batting order in the playoffs, Rodriguez bounced back with the best first half of his career.
As the 2007 Yankees have floundered, Rodriguez has thrived. Heading into yesterday, his 29 home runs were 19 more than anyone else on the team. His 82 RBIs were 32 more than second-place Hideki Matsui. The team was 14-30 when Rodriguez played and did not drive in a run.
“I haven’t seen anything like that,” Damon said. “I’ve been around baseball for a little while. It’s just amazing. The pitches he hit out, the distance how far he hit them, how hard he’s hitting balls. He’s hitting 340-foot singles because he’s hitting the ball so hard. It’s truly amazing.”
The question now is: Will this be viewed as the beginning of A-Rod feeling at home in The Bronx or the beginning of the end of his stay in pinstripes? The backdrop of his amazing season has been whether he will opt out of the final three years of his contract when this season ends. He swears he wants to remain a Yankee, but it’s hard to believe agent Scott Boras won’t convince him to test free-agent waters once November comes.
If Rodriguez does opt out, he has shown his value in the first three months of this season.
Yankees third-base coach Larry Bowa said he noticed something different in Rodriguez as soon as he showed up in Tampa for spring training.
“His demeanor was just different,” Bowa said. “It was almost like, ‘Hey, I hit rock bottom as far as all the things that went wrong last year. I’m just going to go out and play and have fun.’ I don’t think he cared about what was written about him. I don’t think he cared about what people thought about him. I’m not saying he’s out there saying ‘[The heck with] everybody.’ But people are going to have opinions; some are going to like you, some aren’t going to like you. I think he’s accepted that instead of getting on the side of everybody liking him.”
Rodriguez’s first order of business in Tampa was to squash one storyline that followed him since he joined the Yankees in 2004: his relationship with Derek Jeter. Rodriguez’s bizarre arrival press conference, when he admitted he and Jeter no longer had sleepovers, set the tone for this strange season.
Rodriguez has taken a different approach to the media this season than in his first three in New York. He rarely gives interviews, and when he does, they are as bland as burnt toast. His favorite phrase about his success this season has been, “I’m just seeing the ball and trying to hit it.” Bowa coached Rodriguez to be more vanilla in his answers to avoid some of the controversy that surrounded his comments in the past.
“We just talked to him about enjoying the game,” Bowa said. “Things he says to the media at times, I don’t think there’s any malice, but sometimes it doesn’t come out the way he wants it to. Just go out and have fun. Enjoy the game like you did when you first signed.”
FOX broadcaster Tim McCarver has gotten to know Rodriguez well. When McCarver broadcast his first Yankees game of the year on the third Saturday of the season in Boston, he said he immediately noticed a difference in A-Rod, as did partner Joe Buck.
“The thing we noticed before the game, during the game and after the game was that he was smiling very naturally,” McCarver said. “This is a guy where a smile did not come to him easily last year. When he does that, being the most talented player in the game, good things happen. That’s a big reason he could drive in 170 runs and hit 60 home runs this year.”
His teammates noticed a difference in Rodriguez, too.
“He seems happy,” catcher Jorge Posada said. “He seems content. He knows what to expect. He’s in a good place right now.”
Rodriguez has been criticized for failing to come through in the clutch in the past, but this season he has been at his best when the stakes are high. In the ninth inning this year, he was batting .542 with seven homers and 18 RBIs. Compare that to Jeter, thought of as the best Yankee in the clutch, who was hitting .375 with no homers and two RBIs in that inning. In late-and-close situations, Rodriguez was hitting .333 with five home runs and 16 RBIs. Jeter was batting .318 with one homer and six RBIs in the same situations.
Rodriguez also has improved in the field, with five errors this season after making 24 last year. Some of that is because he lost weight over the winter, but most of it has been due to his new attitude.
“I think a lot of it is mental,” Bowa said. “We all knew the errors he made last year, he wasn’t that kind of player. It kind of got in his head a little bit with his throwing. He went out every day and threw and threw and threw.”
It hasn’t all been rosy. Rodriguez slumped in May, batting .235, and has dealt with personal issues splashed across the front page. He further hurt his reputation with the “Ha!” incident in Toronto, where he distracted a Blue Jays infielder on a pop up.
Then there are the Yankees’ struggles. Rodriguez is having his best season in New York as the team has its worst season in ages. His giant first-half numbers did not keep the Yankees from their lowest 81-game win total (39) since 1990.
Now his balky hamstring is threatening to keep him from a big second half. Whatever happens with his injury, it seems Rodriguez finally has learned to live with the demons that accompany playing in New York. The boos that followed him are now forgotten like Carl Pavano.
One man hoping he sticks around is the one signing his paychecks.
“Alex is having a sensational year,” George Steinbrenner said in a statement. “He seems at ease and at home. I look forward to more great things from this magnificent athlete.”