LAST LEGS? Alex Rodriguez gestures to the crowd before his first at-bat —as the DH, not the third baseman, because of quad tightness—and idles in the dugout (inset) during a rehab game last night for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes- Barre. (Paul J. Bereswill (2))
MOOSIC, Pa. — Alex Rodriguez rested his chin in his hand for most of a five-minute news conference late last night, looking glum, talking with the kind of enthusiasm you can imagine he reserves for the Biogenesis police.
Which is to say not much at all.
During the first 18 days of his rehab tour, A-Rod presented an enthusiastic, gracious, elated front. Perhaps it was the sniff of baseball getting closer that brought joy. Maybe it was the strategy of his well-paid crisis managers. Possibly both.
But that evaporated yesterday as A-Rod discussed a tight left quadriceps that forced him to give up the plan to play third base yesterday at Triple-A and, instead, just DH. It also muddied plans for his hoped-for return tomorrow night in Texas.
He hinted that rather than play on Day 20 of his 20-day rehab in Triple-A — as has always been the blueprint — he instead will take today off with an eye on playing against the Rangers tomorrow or Tuesday. But, he admitted, the plans are fluid, malleable, at the mercy of a 38-year-old body that is betraying him.
Rodriguez admitted this new injury had robbed his happiness. He was so tantalizingly close, the rehab having gone from a slow start to a more robust, promising pace. And then this. With The Show so close.
Yes, there has been this conspiracy theory Rodriguez always was going to find a way not to play in a major league game to protect future salary in case he is suspended. But that convoluted scheme always involved his frayed hips leaving him unable to play. No insurance company is paying off on a painful quad.
Instead, what is becoming more evident is that Rodriguez’s body just might be a greater enemy to his baseball future than Bud Selig. What used to be iron now buckles, bends, breaks.
It fits into the story destroying the 2013 Yankees — not injury, as much as re-injury. Just consider that if Francisco Cervelli, Curtis Granderson, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira and Kevin Youkilis simply had come back and stayed back, then all would have been in the lineup at Fenway Park, and the Yankees’ offense would not appear like Scranton/Wilkes-Barre North.
But none of them were there, and now A-Rod, the next guy on the launching pad to return, is dented, as well.
In fact, what the Yankees have to understand better than ever is Jeter and Rodriguez are day-to-day for the rest of their careers. There is no planning with them for next week or next month, and certainly not for next year. They have gone from durable to delicate.
Jeter has led the AL in plate appearances five times, including with 740 last year, the most ever for a player in an age-38 season or older. But since then, Jeter has fractured his ankle twice and suffered a Grade 1 strain of his right quad one game, four plate appearances, into his return — landing on the disabled list yet again.
Not to be outdone by his fre-nemy, A-Rod joined the Quad Squad, he believes, by trying to stretch a single into a double Friday night and finishing with the first hard slide since his second hip surgery in four years. One burst, one hard slide and Rodriguez broke again.
The injury took him out of the field, where he has admitted being several weeks behind. He did bat as the DH. But as opposed to Friday when his swing appeared a powerful apparatus again, Rodriguez went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts last night. And — more disturbing — was that his swing resembled the one from last October when his legs were disconnected from the mechanism and he futilely used his arms to try to — and fail to — generate bat speed.
“It’s been a long road,” Rodriguez said in the postgame monotone. He sounded like a man who has endured the pain of rehab, gotten to the goal line of making all the sweat and — in A-Rod’s case — off-field misery worthwhile, and then had it yanked away from him.
He became ensnarled in the Yankees’ 2013 pathology — injury, rehab, setback … or worse. Just in his case and probably that of Jeter, as well, the birth certificate suggests this is the future. That they never truly will be healed, at least not for a significant period or in a significant way. That they never truly can be trusted again to plan around. Their careers are 24 hours at a time now — at best.
A-Rod ran hard, slid and broke. Texas is now up in the air, and so much more. The baseball cops and the relentless calendar are after Alex Rodriguez.
Which gets him first?