Tuesday, January 15, 2013
NY Post: Yankees hitting coach: A-Rod was in pain in August
Kevin Long saw the lack of power down the stretch from Alex Rodriguez and was well aware something wasn’t right with the third baseman.
“I knew it in August,” the Yankees hitting coach said by phone Saturday. “I didn’t know exactly what it was, but his lower half was not letting him do the things he’s normally able to do.”
Long also knew there were no easy fixes.
“At that point of the season, there’s not much you can do other than keep grinding,” Long said. “So I wasn’t surprised when I heard about the hip injury. His explosion was gone.”
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The option of ending Rodriguez’s season early was not discussed, but Long now concedes it might have been beneficial.“Knowing now that it didn’t work out, maybe it would have been better to shut him down,” Long said. “But we never would have done that.”
I wonder why the Yankees didn’t run any tests at the time. I don’t think ‘keep grinding’ was the best course of action, and all they got out of that was a clearly diminished player and three fewer months of Rodriguez in 2013.
What’s interesting now is that if Rodriguez doesn’t hit the 13 HRs he needs to hit to get to 660 career HRs in 2013 then he’d add another $6M to the 2014 payroll if he gets to 660 in that season. The horror. The horror.
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