Doug Mientkiewicz tried to help Alex Rodriguez‘s mental state yesterday, sending messages of support to his struggling pal.
“I’ve been texting him back and forth this morning to keep his mind right,” Mientkiewicz said.
Mientkiewicz has known Rodriguez since they were high school teammates, and the Yankees first baseman apparently figured his superstar buddy needed some support. Rodriguez has had zero success in the first two games of this series; he goes into tonight 0-for-6 with three strikeouts and a pair of walks.
Mientkiewicz said he wouldn’t reveal the specific content of his texts to Rodriguez. But he said it was more upbeat than anything.
“You know me well enough that nothing really earth-shattering comes out of my brain,” he said. “Everything is pretty much just, enjoy your day, relax and try to win each pitch come Sunday.”
But Rodriguez has won few pitches recently in the postseason, and that’s going beyond the two games of this year’s ALDS. Rodriguez, who’s likely to win his third career MVP in a few weeks, thanks to his 54-homer 156-RBI season, is hitless in his past 19 playoff-at-bats and is in a 4-for-50 postseason slump.
Despite those numbers, Mientkiewicz said he has no worries about Rodriguez and is adamant he will deliver.
“I believe in him probably more than anybody else outside of his family,” Mientkiewicz said. “So I’ve seen him do it before. He’ll do it again. We’ve just got to keep plugging along and get him in situations to where they have to come right at him. I said that before, but I believe in him. He’s going to come through, I promise.”
Andy Pettitte said, “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him and for him to have the year that he’s had. . . . I believe with all my heart that Alex is going to be fine.”
Right now, nobody in the Yankees lineup is fine. The team has gone 8-for-66 (.121) with four runs scored in 20 innings.
“Put Alex in the group with everybody else,” Joe Torre said. “I don’t think it’s fair to single him out. We got three hits. We scored, what, four runs in two games and three of them were home runs. So we certainly need to do a better job of doing what we’ve been doing most of the year.
“But Alex, again, he gets up there in situations. Sometimes they’re not going to pitch to him, sometimes they have to pitch to him and they’re making pretty good pitches on him. He’s fouling off his pitch and stuff like that. I think everybody is trying a little bit too hard. So, hopefully, we’ll come back here tomorrow and have a little fun with it.”
During the regular season against Cleveland, Rodriguez torched the Tribe, hitting .333 (8-for-24) with six homers in six games. He’s faring far worse against the Indians at the moment.