Derek Jeter was on second base with two outs in the first inning when Alex Rodriguez left him there by flying out to right. But Rodriguez wasn’t unhappy with his turn at the plate.
“I liked my first at-bat,” he said. “I thought I had some good swings and I stayed inside the baseball.”
For Rodriguez, that promising sign led to better at-bats. And four innings later, when he came up again with Jeter on second and two outs, as he said, “just got a good pitch to hit, stayed short and hit it good.”
Rodriguez hit it “good” a few times in last night’s 7-2 Game 1 win over the Twins in the first playoff game at the new Stadium, as he finally started delivering in a Yankees playoff game. He had a pair of run-scoring singles, including a critical one in the Bombers’ game-clinching fifth-inning rally.
On that one, Rodriguez laced an RBI single to left, then scored on Hideki Matsui’s two-run homer, part of the Yankees’ three-run inning. Later in the seventh, he smacked an RBI single off the right-field wall.
Rodriguez came into the game hitless in his last 27 postseason at-bats with runners on base — and in his last 18 playoff turns with runners in scoring position. When he was asked if he had been aware of the numbers — without the reporter even specifying which numbers — Rodriguez replied, “Yeah. There’s no question that they haven’t been real good.”
Nope. And then they proceeded to get worse as Rodriguez flied out in the first inning to make it 0-for-28 and 0-for-19, respectively. Two innings later, he went down swinging with a man on first and two outs. But in the fifth, Rodriguez came up with Jeter on second and two outs, and he finally came through, putting the Yankees up 4-2 with his RBI single.
“It just feels good to contribute and do the little things,” he said.
After Rodriguez returned from right hip surgery, the Yankees went an absurd 90-44. And manager Joe Girardi doesn’t see Rodriguez’s past postseason failures happening again.
“I think the importance about playing in October is being relaxed,” Girardi said. “Alex has had a lot of fun this year. You say, ‘How do you know?’ I hear him laughing every day. And it’s laughing out loud.”
He might have cackled a bit more last night.