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October 11, 2005
Pay-Rod Wets The Bed Again
Okay, first things first... I readily concede that the Yankee$ lasted two games longer than the Sox did, and at the very least managed to win a playoff game this year. So I fully acknowledge that they ended up being a better team than my Red Sox this year.
However, one Yankee who (yet again) proved that he's not worth a roll of Charmin when it counts was "Bitch Slap" himself, the most selfish player in baseball not named Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez. The one thing Pay-Rod accomplished in the playoffs was to prove that all the yap about him being the MVP over David Ortiz is a complete joke.
Alex Rodriguez, by his own admission, "played like a dog" during the playoffs. That's a polite way of saying that when it mattered, Alex Rodriguez batted .133 and made the error in Game 2 that eventually cost his team their season. This of course comes on top of going 2 for 17 last year in the final four games of the ALCS against the Red Sox last year. Which basically means that when his team has needed him the most since acquiring him, Alex Rodriguez is 4 for 32 -- a pathetic .125 batting average.
This isn't a surprise though. Rodriguez has pretty much been gagging like Chloe Sevigny in "The Brown Bunny" whenever the heat's on since he got to the Yankees. As one columnist put it, "A-Rod fails miserably on biggest stage." He hit 48 home runs in 2005, sure ... but only 21 came with runners on base; he hit only .290 with runners in scoring position -- not awful, but sure as hell not MVP-level. In fact, Pay-Rod wasn't even the most valuable Yankee, much less league MVP... Mariano Rivera, who had a stellar season and gets my vote for the AL Cy Young, was far more critical to the Yankee$' success than Rodriguez. Meanwhile, Big Papi hit .352 with runners in scoring position, hit .368 with RISP and two outs, and led the league in RBI (having knocked in more than 10% more than Rodriguez). What's that, you say? Papi didn't play defense, and A-Rod did? Ask Yankee fans how happy they are with Bitch Slap's glovework in, say, Game 2.
Yes, the Yankees may have been a better team than the Red Sox this year. But I get the consolation of knowing that once more, Alex Rodriguez proved what an overpaid, overrated, pile-on-the-stats-when-there's-no-pressure little puppy he really is.
Comments
You cannot unequivocally say the Yankees were better than the Red Sox this year. To know for sure, we would have had to have seen them both play the White Sox, a better team the the Angels.
Posted by: Brent at October 11, 2005 11:24 PM
Tell that to the Angels, who just won game 1.
Posted by: Curmudgeon at October 11, 2005 11:27 PM
So when are you coming to cook me dinner??
Posted by: Jenn at October 12, 2005 07:18 AM
It was but a fluke.
Posted by: Brent at October 12, 2005 08:32 AM
A-Fraud is a dink.
Posted by: Brent at October 14, 2005 12:51 PM
