AMERICAN LEAGUE
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
Alex Rodriguez made his much-anticipated debut on Friday and, in typical A-Rod fashion, the return was a spectacle.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The narrow dugout was a mob scene, a crush of news media jostling for position, angling to get the best angle to receive Rodriguez’s pearls of wisdom: The mistakes he has made and learned from, his rededication to baseball.
The news of Manny Ramirez’s suspension a day earlier had taken a little of the edge off Rodriguez’s return — but only a little.
Rodriguez spoke about how painful it was to see the Yankees struggle without him in the lineup.
“It was tough to watch,” he said. “Sitting on the sideline watching my team lose, it was hard. It was hard to watch.”
With the Yanks reeling from five straight losses heading into Friday night’s game against the Orioles, and manager Joe Girardi beginning to hear whispers about his job security, the theme of the evening was A-Rod, the knight in shining armor, racing in, two months after having arthroscopic hip surgery, to pull the Yankees out of the fire.
On cue, in his first at-bat of the season, Rodriguez hit a three-run homer, helping the Yankees to a victory behind a complete game from their ace, C.C. Sabathia.
Yankees fans have glimpsed life without Rodriguez for the last two months and they haven’t liked what they’ve seen. For most of his tenure in New York, Rodriguez has taken an inordinate amount of grief, some of it self-inflicted, some of it ritual. But Yankees fans, faced with going down the stony edge are now saying, “Thank God for A-Rod.”
But for all the buzz about Rodriguez’s return, the Yankees have larger problems. The reality is that Rodriguez’s return is a masking agent that hides some ugly truths. While the franchise has added young components, the heart of the team is old.
Not just getting old, but is old. The Yankees’ core players may be too far past their collective prime to make a run for glory this season.
Mariano Rivera, the best reliever in baseball history, will turn 40 in November. Catcher Jorge Posada will turn 38 in August. Andy Pettitte will be 37 next month. Johnny Damon will turn 36 in November. Hideki Matsui and Derek Jeter will be 35 next month.
On Thursday, Rivera allowed back-to-back home runs for the first time in his major league career. He has allowed as many home runs in little more than a month than he allowed in either of the last two seasons. Jeter, the Yankees captain and the anchor of the franchise’s most recent championship team, has lost a step at shortstop. Posada, who had shoulder surgery during the off-season, was placed on the 15-day disabled list on Tuesday with a hamstring injury. He may be out for as many as three weeks.
Most players said they felt Rivera would come around.
Damon said the problem with Rivera was simply under-use: The Yankees have not been in enough save situations to get him sufficient work.
“The more he pitches, the better he’ll be,” Damon said. “He’s still at the top of his game. It seems like every year there’s a small section of the season where he’s going to struggle, but he’ll find it.”
Girardi — by far the happiest of all with the return of Rodriguez — rejected the notion that the Yankees’ advanced age is an issue.
“You look around at our infield,” he said on Friday. “We’re not as old as we were last year. We’ve struggled for a number of reasons, I don’t think it’s age.”
Perhaps not individually.
Before Friday’s game, Damon and Jeter spoke about age, baseball and performance, although the conversation segued into an individual’s ability to play despite age.
Jeter said he hadn’t even thought about retirement.
“I’m 35 years old,” he said. “That’s something that hasn’t even crossed my mind.”
Damon said his goal was to play for another four or five years, get 3,000 hits and maybe reach the top 10 in runs scored.
“I definitely don’t want to struggle in this game, so I think once struggle starts happening on an everyday basis, and I can’t get out of it, that’s the time,” Damon said. “I would love to play until I’m 39. I’ll go into the off-season, have my big 40th birthday and be done with it.”
Individual performance is one thing. Individually, Damon, Jeter, Posada, Pettitte and perhaps even Rivera can play effectively for several more seasons. That’s not the Yankees’ issue and it hasn’t been the issue since they won their last World Series title.
The Yankees’ problem is that, while many of the teams around them — most notably the Rays — have gotten younger, the heart and soul of the Yankees is aging. That’s something that even the 33-year-old Rodriguez’s return cannot cure.
Everyone around the team argues that it’s still early. But for the Yankees, it may already be too late.
In AL action on Friday it was:
• Yankees 4, Orioles0
• Red Sox 7, Rays 3
• Angels 4, Royals 1
• Athletics 5, Blue Jays 3
• Rangers 6, White Sox 0
• Twins 11, Mariners 0
• Tigers 1, Indians 0
In NL action it was:
• Reds 6, Cardinals 4
• Giants 3, Dodgers 1
• Brewers 3, Cubs 2
• Mets 7, Pirates 3
• Marlins 8, Rockies 3
• Astros 2, Padres 0
• Nationals 5, Diamondbacks 4
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