4.27.2005
Tom Hallion, the home plate umpire in Tuesday night's game, had a consistent strike zone: Small. Nothing on the fringes. Carl Pavano, the Yankees' pitcher, glared in after a couple of near-misses, but adapted. Bartolo Colon had more problems with Hallion's strike zone, his pitch count climbing over 100 in less than four innings. In A-Rod's first at-bat, the count was 1-1, and Colon spun a pretty good breaking ball over the outside corner. Rodriguez flinched slightly; it looked like strike 2, Kaat and Ken Singleton agreed. Hallion called it a ball. A-Rod got a break; he would have been behind in the count, again. He might have guessed again, and perhaps the rest of the night would have played out differently.
The count went to 2-2 and with two runners on base and A-Rod struggling, Colon challenged Rodriguez, who anticipated a fastball – almost coming out of his shoes to swing. And he clubbed a three-run homer.
By his third at-bat, A-Rod was in full attack mode, his swing quickened; he was all over Colon's fastball. He had hit a two-run shot in his second at-bat, with the count 3-2 in the fourth inning, he launched a grand slam, for his 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th RBI.
He would finish with 10 RBI , and the guy I thought of, watching this, was Roger Clemens. The future Hall of Famer had labored through his first season with the Yankees, so much that Andy Pettitte said he sat in the dugout sometimes and thought: When are you going to bring the good stuff? Clemens continued in the same way into his second season with the team, got hurt, went on the disabled list. He pitched great in his first game back, in early July – and then took off. It was as if in that first game back, he shed some of his discomfort and went back to being a superstar again.
Maybe that's what this 10 RBI game will do for A-Rod: The perfect performance against a great pitcher with the perfect hitters' umpire behind the plate. Maybe it'll be a reminder of how much fun the game can be, rather than a daily barometer of whether or not he's worthy of pinstripes. There's not much point in worrying about that stuff now, anyway, because he can't prove anything to Yankees' fans during the long season; ultimately, all the Yankees are judged by the owner and the fan base on whether they win in October.
Maybe A-Rod won't be so anxious any more. We'll see. As Luis Sojo told Jack Curry, the Yankees have to have him be great again. [buster olney, espn insider blog thing]
Labels: team a-rod
