Photo courtesy
The Yankees finally have an excuse to bench Alex Rodriguez other than the fact that he’s batting .145 on the season, of course.
The 40-year-old slugger left Sunday’s 8-1 home loss to the Rays with left oblique stiffness. Manager Joe Girardi said after the game A-Rod suffered the injury warming up in the cage in the top of the sixth inning. He was due up second in the bottom half.
Rodriguez later underwent an MRI at New York-Presbyterian, and results came back negative. Still, Girardi was downbeat after the game given the “tricky” nature of the injury.
“Any time someone leaves with an oblique, you’re not really optimistic because they take a while depending on the severity of it,” Girardi said. “When players physically feel ready, I still don’t think they have the strength that they had before. It takes some time to get that back.”
Rodriguez will travel with the Yankees to Texas for the start of a nine-game road trip got up twice in the contest before exiting with the stiffness. He struck out swinging to lead off the second inning, then drove in the Yankees’ lone run of the day in the fourth inning with a laser double that slammed into the left-field wall near the 318 sign.
Rodriguez had to hustle into second because of how hard he hit the ball, but Girardi said he didn’t suffer the injury on the double. The two-base knock ended an 0-for-13 slump for Rodriguez, who has the sixth-worst average in the majors among players with 50 or more plate appearances.