Phillies find intimidating A-Rod not so easy
Maybe Philly should try hitting the baseball, not Yankees slugger
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It was a simple thought in the first inning when Phillies starter Joe Blanton drilled Alex Rodriquez, the third time in two nights the Yankees' clean-up hitter collected a contusion. And Blanton didn’t just hit A-Rod. He plunked him square in the back. It wasn’t a pitch meant to back A-Rod off the plate. It was meant to back him into the parking lot and out of the series.
For the rest of the game, it looked as if the strategy worked. A-Rod, who had slugged a two-run homer in Game 3 — his only hit of the Series — failed to deliver another hit.
Then the ninth arrived and brought A-Rod to the plate with Johnny Damon on third, Mark Teixeira on first, two outs on the scoreboard, a tie score, and Brad Lidge on the mound. On the second pitch, A-Rod ripped a double into left, the tie was broken, Mariano Rivera was warming up, and the Yankees had nabbed a 3-1 Series lead.
It’s impossible to tell whether the Phillies strategy of pelting him with baseballs contributed to the biggest hit A-Rod has ever had — so far. But if the idea was to intimidate him, it didn’t work. And if the idea was to wake him up, it did work.
Once or twice a generation, a pitcher admits to intentionally trying to implant a baseball between a hitter’s ribs. Every other hit batsman is always the result of “a pitch that got away from me.” So there will be no admission of intent from Blanton or the Phillies. There doesn’t have to be. We all know what they’ve been up to.
A-Rod took his two Game 3 plunkings without visible reaction. But when he got hit again in Game 4, he turned and looked long and inquiringly into the Yankee dugout, as if silently asking his teammates whether it would be all right to dash out to the mound to take a few swings at Blanton.
It might be in the regular season, which would provide great amusement to fans and fodder for commentators. In the World Series, when fights mean expulsions and maybe suspensions, it’s not a good idea. The Yankees are going to need A-Rod, and he knows it.
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After putting the points of their heads together, the umpires decided that enough was enough and warned both teams that the next pitcher to intentionally throw at an opponent would be excused from further participation in the night’s entertainment.
But the deed was done, and whether it would blow up in the Phillies’ faces or spur them to victory over the hated New Yorkers (Yes, I know. In Philadelphia, that’s redundant.) remains to be seen.
On the face of it, it’s a dangerous idea. A-Rod’s bat was absent from the first two game of this Series. In Game 3, he started to wake up. And that's not something Philly should want.
“That one time I got hit in (Saturday's) game — my first at-bat — that kind of woke me up a little bit and just reminded me, hey, this is the World Series, let's get it going a little bit. So it worked out,” Rodriguez told reporters after Game 4.
A-Rod's the most dangerous, the most controversial, the most loathed and one of the most popular players on the Yankees, which is saying a lot. The point is, he’s not the player any team wants to wake up. If he gets himself worked up into a hot streak, that’s the end of the series.
Philadelphia seems to be willing to take that uncertain chance. Maybe the Phillies have bought the perceived wisdom that A-Rod is a bit of a wuss, and that he can be intimidated. Or maybe they feel that a good way to fire up their own team is to draw a bulls-eye on the back of the other team’s most potent player.
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