A-Rod's rollercoaster season continues
Posted: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 6:09 AM
If the season continues in August as it has so far for Alex Rodriguez, look for an offensive explosion. And if it doesn’t come, look for what began as one of the game’s all-time great seasons to turn into just another very good year.
But as good as it will be, if he doesn’t pick it up, the year will end with the same question with which it began: Is he really worth it?
You can check out the numbers here, and I’ll run through them below. But after hitting the 499th home run of his career July 25, Rodriguez has gone homerless and hitless in five straight games. He accomplished that feat on merit: Tuesday night, the Yankees put a 16-3 whupping on the White Sox, hitting eight home runs. And A-Rod was hitless.
His totals for the month were a .196 batting average, seven homers and 24 RBIs. The home run on July 25 is his only extra-base hit in the final ten games of the month. On July 1, he was hitting .325 on the season; on July 31, he was hitting .298.
A pattern has now formed – one good month followed by one bad month.
A-Rod hit .355 in April and slugged .882. With five games to go in the month, he already had 14 home runs. But from April 24 through May 18, he had just one home run and five RBIs in 22 games. May on the whole wasn’t good to him; he hit .235 in May with just five homers and 11 ribbies, roughly one third of his output in April.
In June, A-Rod was back on top his game, hitting .402 for the month with nine homers and 34 RBIs. In July, as we’ve already seen, he was again scrounging for hits.
He’ll still end the season with great numbers. He’s already hit 35 home runs driven in 103 runs and scored 97, and there aren’t many players who wouldn’t take that for an entire season. But great hitters are consistent hitters. They may have a bad month here and there, but they don’t run as hot and cold as A-Rod does.
Take Manny Ramirez, the one player who is arguably A-Rod’s equal as a hitter. He had an awful April, hitting just .202, but in May he hit .327, in June .322 and in July .356. (Full stats are here.) He hasn’t produced runs at an A-Rod-ian pace; he’s got 68 RBIs and 63 runs, but once he got past May, he’s been far more reliable from one day to the next.
We all know A-Rod can opt out of the final three years of his contract at the end of the season and that his agent, Scott “Captain Chutzpah” Boras, is probably going to do just that so he can ask for $30 million a year for another six or seven years.
A month ago, that looked like a lock. But that was when A-Rod was on his way to 60-plus dingers and close to 160 RBIs. Those numbers are worth that money. Now, though, who knows what he’s worth? And is he worth it to the Yankees?
I don’t know, and no one will know until we see if he can crank it up in August – and then keep it going in September and into October. If he does, there could even be a bidding war for him. But if he sticks to form and has one good month and one bad month, there’s got to be hesitation. Yes, the numbers are great, but the consistency – the hallmark of true greatness – isn’t. And that’s always what’s driven people nuts about him – his game is here today, gone tomorrow.
It’s August, time to crank it up again. Stay tuned.
