CLEVELAND — Imagine if the Yankees weren’t winning while Alex Rodriguez chases his 600th career home run and baseball history.
Since Rodriguez swatted 599 a week ago, the Yankees have won four of six games, so the angst that lives in self-hating Yankees fans has not led them to lash out at their favorite target.
In those half-dozen tilts, Rodriguez hasn’t come close to becoming the seventh player in history to hit 600 homers and it appears not to bother him.
“The more I can think about helping the team win the more productive I will be,” Rodriguez said after contributing two hits and an RBI to an 8-0 victory over the Indians at Progressive Field last night in front of 22,965.
Since homering in the seventh inning last Thursday, Rodriguez is 8-for-26 (.308) but not using hits as a guide to how he is swinging.
“I feel really good about my at-bats,” he said. “The swing was a little shorter, I was swinging at strikes and going deeper into counts.”
Because Rodriguez, who has 16 home runs, is averaging a homer every 22.7 at-bats, he can’t be considered in a long ball funk. But the longer it takes for him to hit the milestone homer, the issue gets a little more annoying for everyone.
“It’s going to happen, but until it does, we will continue to talk about it,” Joe Girardi said.
A.J. Burnett was the beneficiary of the Yankees destroying Fausto Carmona and improved to 9-8 with his second straight win and third in four decisions.
“The curveball was the best I had in a long time,” said Burnett, who has pitched very well twice since attacking a Yankee Stadium clubhouse door three outings ago. “I was able to throw it for strikes and that kept them off everything else.”
Burnett left in the seventh after issuing a one-out walk to Andy Marte. He was replaced by Joba Chamberlain, who until Sunday had been Joe Girardi’s eighth-inning reliever and Mariano Rivera’s set up man. Girardi said he didn’t want to summon Sergio Mitre, who worked the final two innings, in the middle of an inning, and that’s why he called for Chamberlain.
Burnett, who had one perfect frame, went 6 1/3 innings, gave up seven hits and walked three.
Chamberlain, who hadn’t worked since Sunday, balked Marte to second, retired Jason Donald on a fly to right that advanced Marte to third and ended the inning by getting Trevor Crowe on a fly to right.
Every Yankees starter but Derek Jeter (0-for-5) had at least one hit. Robinson Cano homered, and Mark Teixeira and Brett Gardner drove in two runs each.
The victory kept the Yankees two games ahead of the second-place Rays in the AL East.
The Phillies’ interest in Carmona had to subside after they watched him get spanked. The right-hander gave up seven runs and 10 hits in 2 2/3 innings and fell to 10-8.
Rodriguez had an RBI single in the first, popped up in the second, fanned in the fourth, doubled in the sixth — ripping second base off its mooring as he dived in — and battled Frank Herrmann across a 10-pitch at-bat in the eighth before flying to short right field.
“He went right after me,” Rodriguez said of Herrmann, who challenged Rodriguez with 96-mph fastballs. “It was a good battle and he got the best of me.”
Eventually, a pitcher is going into the record books as the hurler who got tagged for No. 600. Yet, as long as the Yankees win the focus won’t be on Rodriguez sitting on 599.
Unless of course you have a piece of those commemorative T-shirts waiting to be put on sale.