NEW YORK — A day that could have started awkwardly for Alex Rodriguez, with talk of steroids and disappointment, instead ended with the focus mostly where A-Rod probably wants it: NEW YORK — A day that could have started awkwardly
NEW YORK — A day that could have started awkwardly for Alex Rodriguez, with talk of steroids and disappointment, instead ended with the focus mostly where A-Rod probably wants it:
On the field.
Rodriguez hit his first home run of the season and drove in another run with a single in his fifth game of the season as the Yankees beat the Tigers 4-3 before 42,439 at Yankee Stadium on Sunday.
“Today was a good day all around,” Rodriguez said. “I felt pretty good. I had a couple days like this, but in Trenton and Scranton. They don’t count as much.”
Rodriguez’s towering home run to left leading off the second inning turned what had been mostly boos to nothing but cheers. A-Rod clapped his hands as he rounded first base on his first home run since Sept. 14. It was the 648th of his career, fifth on baseball’s all-time list and 12 short of Willie Mays (and a $6-million contract bonus if Rodriguez gets to 660 and ties Mays).
“The fans have been incredible,” Rodriguez said. “You want to turn boos into cheers. You want to go out and make them proud. All you want is really an opportunity and a chance, and I think New York always gives you that.”
For Rodriguez, there were the usual off-field issues. For the fourth consecutive year, the Yankees hosted an anti-steroids benefit for the Taylor Hooton Foundation; a pregame on-field presentation and public-address announcement about the fight against performance-enhancing drug use in young people was a bit of an awkward moment.
The foundation and its founder, Don Hooton, cut ties with Rodriguez after he was suspended for 211 games by Major League Baseball for an alleged association with the shuttered ant-aging clinic Biogenesis last Monday. Rodriguez is playing while he appeals the suspension.
Rodriguez, who went 2-for-4, is 5-for-19 (.263) since returning from offseason hip surgery and a quadriceps strain on the same day his suspension was announced.
Rodriguez’s home run was his first extra-base hit and first RBI of the season. It came off Verlander, the 2011 Cy Young Award winner and AL MVP.
“It felt good,” Rodriguez said. “Good to get that first one out of the way. We needed this win today. We needed to win a series against a very good team and a great pitcher.”
In the regular season, A-Rod is 10-for-28 (.357) against Verlander with four home runs. That includes a third-inning RBI single that surprised even Rodriguez.
The Yankees were leading 2-1 on the strength of A-Rod’s home run and an Eduardo Nunez sacrifice fly (also in the second inning) when Robinson Cano doubled with two out in the third.
Rodriguez then lined a 98-mph fastball inside the first-base line to make it 3-1. A-Rod, though, didn’t know where the ball had gone and even looked up as if he had hit a fly ball before he left the batter’s box.
“I actually thought I fouled it off to the upper deck,” Rodriguez said. “I did that probably seven, eight years ago against (knuckleballer Tim) Wakefield.”
Rodriguez, who had a day off Saturday, was also tested at third base.
“Too much test,” he said with a laugh.
He started an inning-ending 5-5-3 double play to get Andy Pettitte out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning. He booted a slow roller in the third for his first error of the season and made a nice play coming in to throw out a runner leading off the fourth.
In the eighth, Rodriguez ranged far to his right to field a grounder and got a forceout at second base with an off-balance throw (though the runner might have been safe).
