Alex Rodriguez still isn’t on the same page with the Yankees when it comes to, well, pretty much anything.
Yesterday, Rodriguez said he was not notified of discipline from the team in relation to the ill-conceived second opinion on his quad injury he sought without the Yankees’ permission.
“That has not happened,” Rodriguez said. “Maybe it was sent to my lawyers.”
But a source confirmed Rodriguez was, indeed, told in person on Friday about the unspecified penalty, which won’t be enforced until after the appeal of his 211-game suspension is heard.
That wasn’t the only unique take Rodriguez had on things yesterday, when he was held out of the lineup against the Tigers during a 9-3 loss a day after making his 2013 Yankee Stadium debut. Manager Joe Girardi cited the quick turnaround after Friday’s extra-inning game.
“I’m just trying to be proactive in this and make sure we don’t run him into the ground where he ends up hurting something else,” Girardi said.
While there were plenty of boos hurled in Rodriguez’s direction Friday, he didn’t seem to hear most of them and believed his return to The Bronx was a rousing success.
“It was awesome,” Rodriguez, who did not speak to the media on Friday, said yesterday. “The fans are incredible, such great energy. It was such a great response. It was pretty overwhelming.”
By the end of the game, which the Yankees won 4-3 in 10 innings, he had struck out three times and been removed for defensive purposes in the ninth inning.
“[Friday] was a day I’ll never forget,” Rodriguez said. “They showed up.”
Rodriguez insisted he feared a worse response from the crowd.
“It was so much better than I ever even dreamed of,” he said. “I just felt the love walking around the city, what people were screaming. It was incredible. This is the greatest city in the world.”
And the jeering, he said, wasn’t something he was unaccustomed to.
“For the last 14 years, it’s always been a mix,” Rodriguez said. “Do you ever get 100 percent of anything, good or bad? Even Chicago was a mix. Boston’s going to be a mix … well, maybe not Boston.”
Rodriguez didn’t help matters in front of the home crowd by going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts.
“The first three games [back], I felt pretty darn good,” Rodriguez said of his performance at the plate before facing Detroit’s Rick Porcello on Friday. “Porcello had some nasty sinkers and obviously, I helped him out a little bit.”
Rodriguez had trouble facing right-handed pitching a year ago, but neither he nor Girardi was ready to say the same would be true this season.
If he plays today, Rodriguez would have to face Justin Verlander — against whom he actually has had some success in the past.
“I think it’s way too early to judge that,” Girardi said. “This is a long season and there’s a lot of at-bats. And you don’t judge anyone on a day, a week or really guys that have a track record, a month. You give them some time.”