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PHOENIX — He is a heavy favorite to eclipse Barry Bonds’ all-time home-run record if his body doesn’t break.
Long after he is done playing, his legacy will be connected to home runs.
Yet, standing in the Yankees’ clubhouse last night after helping the visitors to a 9-3 win over the Diamondbacks in front of 45,776 at Chase Field, Alex Rodriguez uttered words that have to make your head shake.
“I have never considered myself a home-run hitter,” Rodriguez said after going 2-for-3 with a two-run homer and driving in three runs.
What? A guy with 592 homers and seventh on the all-time list doesn’t believe he is a homer hitter! That’s like Eric Clapton thinking he was a better singer than guitar player. Or Lady Gaga wrongly believing she has a body everybody wants to see.
“I consider myself a guy who drives in runs,” said Rodriguez, who hiked his RBI total to 48 with a two-run, two-out homer in the first and a two-out single in the third.
Whatever Rodriguez thinks he is was fine with the Yankees, who broke open the game with six runs in the eighth.
The victory, coupled with the Rays and Red Sox losing, increased the Yankees’ AL East lead to a season-high 1½ games.
On Monday night, Rodriguez, who had hit two homers since May 20 and has been hobbled by a right groin/hip flexor problem, said he was getting closer to feeling good at the plate.
Last night it took three pitches before he crushed his ninth homer and staked Andy Pettitte to a 2-0 lead.
“I got a 1-1 fastball,” Rodriguez said of Dan Haren’s mistake that landed in the left-field seats. “That pitch I have been grounding out to third base or lining it to right. I put a good swing on it.”
After Pettitte, who improved to 9-2 and strengthened his bid to be an All-Star next month, gave up a two-run single to Haren in the second that tied the score, 2-2, Rodriguez restored the lead with a two-out single up the middle on a 2-2 pitch.
Rodriguez got the biggest hits but he wasn’t alone. The slumping Derek Jeter, Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira had two hits each and Colin Curtis’s first big-league hit was a two-run double in the eighth.
As for Pettitte, who singled in the fifth, he grinded through seven innings in which he gave up two runs and seven hits and was annoyed that Haren, the best hitting pitcher in baseball, got him for two hits and two RBIs.
“It’s always nice to get a hit; unfortunately I have up two hits and two RBIs to the other guy,” Pettitte said.