BOSTON — Leave it to Alex Rodriguez to try to put a positive spin on an awful weekend at Fenway Park.
Hobbled with a sore left hamstring and now a tight right calf — and with a team that was pummeled for three days by the Red Sox — Rodriguez said things could soon get better for the Yankees.
“I guess the good news is we’re leaving Boston,” Rodriguez said with a chuckle following Sunday’s 9-2 loss.
“This team is unbelievable right now,” Rodriguez said of the Red Sox. “From all the teams I’ve seen, they’ve got to be the top contenders for the World Series.”
He does seem to have a point, as the Red Sox continue to put the Yankees — and everyone else in the AL East — far behind them.
After Monday’s off day, the Yankees play in Toronto and face the last-place Blue Jays for three games as they try to remain in contention. And, as Rodriguez noted, they are done playing the Red Sox.
“I think if you take Boston away over the last two or three weeks, we’ve played really good baseball,” Rodriguez said. “Boston has done an absolute number on us. They’ve basically whipped our ass.”
Prior to this three-game sweep, the Red Sox had taken three of four from the Yankees in The Bronx earlier in the month.
Despite his newfound love for the Yankees’ rivals, Rodriguez wasn’t quite ready to concede his team’s season.
“We’ve got go out, take a day off, take a deep breath and come out and play good baseball,” Rodriguez said. “You never know.”
True enough, especially with the Rays and Rangers unable to put the Yankees away in the wild-card race.
“I haven’t paid attention, but I know that we’re in the mix,” Rodriguez said of the wild-card race. “It’s nothing a two- or three-game winning streak can’t fix. You’ve got to play as hard as you can. Crazier things have happened.”
Perhaps, but the prospect of having an even more immobile Rodriguez in the lineup — or not in it at all — won’t make that task any easier.
Rodriguez and the Yankees will have to see how he responds to a calf injury that caused him to be pinch hit for by Vernon Wells in the fifth inning Sunday.