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HOLY POW! A-ROD SLAM SAVES DAVE By MICHAEL MORRISSEY document.write(''); April 8, 2007 -- With two outs and nobody on in the ninth inning yesterday, Alex Rodriguez was four batters away from getting a chance to hit. At that moment, he still knew he'd be the deciding factor for the umpteenth time in his Yankee career. "Somehow, I knew it would come down to me," Rodriguez said, chuckling later. "I don't know. It always ends up like I'm in the middle of something, one way or the other." Sure enough, the Yankees loaded the bases, but Rodriguez fell behind Baltimore closer Chris Ray 1-and-2. With his club one strike away from a 1-3, last-place start, Rodriguez crushed a 95 mph fastball into the black backdrop in center for an unforgettable grand slam. Rodriguez's ecstatic, jubilant joyride around the bases capped a surreal 10-7 comeback victory against the Orioles and punctuated what was admittedly one of his finest moments as a Yankee. For the record, it was teammate Derek Jeter who pushed Rodriguez onto the field for a deserving curtain call from those remaining of the crowd of 50,510. "It felt awesome," Rodriguez said. "I was so excited, I felt like a fool running around the bases. Like it was Little League." With two homers and six RBIs, Rodriguez helped paper over an awful major-league debut by Kei Igawa (five innings, eight hits, seven earned runs) and numb the loss of Hideki Matsui, who exited in the fourth inning with a strained left hamstring. Jason Giambi reversed momentum in the eighth with a three-run shot to right off Danys Baez that cut the deficit to one run after Igawa had pitched the Yankees into a 7-2 ditch. "He's a big key to this team," Giambi said of Rodriguez. "He's one of the best players in the game. If we can get him going, that's definitely going to make it a lot easier for us on the season. "We definitely want him to play well. We are definitely rooting for him. There's not a situation where we want him to do bad. We want him to do great." Robinson Cano started the final rally with a single to center, and Jeter walked after a hit-by-pitch ruling was reversed. Ray was wild, and he nailed Bobby Abreu on the knee to juice the bases. Rodriguez took a ball and a called strike, and then swung through a Ray fastball. He wasn't going to miss again. "I was talking to some of the guys in here earlier, and we felt like we needed this game," Rodriguez said. "It was urgent for us." It was Rodriguez's 14th career grand slam and 45th multi-homer game (he hit a two-run blast in the first). Joe Torre said he hoped the game-winner finally would quell criticism of Rodriguez's clutch abilities. "You get to a point, when do you have to stop proving yourself?" Torre wondered. "When you set the bar as high as his is set, people sort of expect it all the time. . . . People say, men on base, he can't do this, he can't do that. Well, there it is. Let's shut the book on that one, and wait for the next chapter." By the time Igawa toed the rubber for the fifth inning, he had already dug a five-run ditch, thrown the first pitch of the previous inning about 55 feet and committed a fielding error that prolonged a 35-pitch, four-run second. In his major-league debut, Igawa did nothing but spark speculation about why the Yankees invested $46 million in him. So much for the Daisuke Matsuzaka comparisons. Yankees 10 Orioles 7 michael.morrissey@nypost.com |
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Originally Posted by Double D
Thing is about the media they have a hard on each time A-rod does something great like this and then whenever he fails next time in a similiar situation he will be booed and the media will try to put him in his grave. The only other city I would not want to play in other than NY is Philly!
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Originally Posted by Double D
Thing is about the media they have a hard on each time A-rod does something great like this and then whenever he fails next time in a similiar situation he will be booed and the media will try to put him in his grave.
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Originally Posted by Goodfella9783
I know I don't get this. Mino, why does NY hate A-Rod regardless of the #'s he puts up? Is it purely based on his struggles in the clutch in the past couple years?
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Originally Posted by Goodfella9783
Bot 1st: NY Yankees
A. Rodriguez homered to deep right, D. Jeter scored |
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Originally Posted by Double D
Well to go along with all of that hes getting paid way to damn much. Hes not the best player in baseball, but yet hes getting paid like it, tough to live up to that!
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Originally Posted by Double D
He is stroking the ball right now!
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Originally Posted by Double D
Agreed!
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Originally Posted by Double D
Hahaha.....yes, but thats his downfall. Awesome throughout the year until October. Hell everyone knows NY is baseball so maybe if you can persuade MLB to play the World Series in June you may have a shot!
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Originally Posted by Double D
Mets were looking good until yesterday. Doesnt matter Mets couldnt do it when it counted!
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Originally Posted by Goodfella9783
why does NY hate A-Rod regardless of the #'s he puts up? Is it purely based on his struggles in the clutch in the past couple years?
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Originally Posted by soxmuscle
A meaningless home run against the Devil Rays deserves a curtain call? Only in New York...
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Originally Posted by soxmuscle
A meaningless home run against the Devil Rays deserves a curtain call? Only in New York...
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Originally Posted by Triple Threat
Yeah, a walk-off home-run is meaningless.
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Originally Posted by Goodfella9783
Yeah I don't remember a walk-off HR against TB TripleThreat. When was that?
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Originally Posted by Goodfella9783
Yeah I don't remember a walk-off HR against TB TripleThreat. When was that?
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Originally Posted by soxmuscle
I don't blame him. It's hard to keep track of all the curtain calls when you get one for doing anything and everything.
Yankees fans have completely ruined the curtain call. |
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Originally Posted by Goodfella9783
Nothin Dice-K can do when the offense isn't hitting. 7 Innings 8 Hits 3 Runs 4K for Dice-K. That's an average start.
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Originally Posted by soxmuscle
Mussina leaves tonights game early. Good stuff.
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Originally Posted by Triple Threat
I don't see how you can consider yourself a sports fan and say something like that. Seeing an opposing player get injured and thinking "Great! That helps my team" is something that I cannot comprehend.
It's one thing to see an opposing player do poorly, but wishing ill or harm on someone goes beyond good sportsmanship. |
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Originally Posted by JOHNYORK
id live matusuka to give up more than a hit an inning.
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Originally Posted by I Are Baboon
What?
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