I Thought This Trend Ended in 2009

Disclaimer.

Wallace Matthews covers the Yankees. He is, for the most part, good at his job.

However, for whatever reason, he hates Alex Rodriguez.

His original article appears here: http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/7051848/2011-alds-new-york-yankees-alex-rodriguez-battling-playoff-demons-again ...but you can find a lot of it here.

Take it away, Wallace.
There are some people in this world whom the failure monkey will simply not leave alone.

For those unfortunate souls, the monkey may hop off for a while but it never strays very far. It sticks close by, follows them around, and stays ready to jump back aboard at a moment's notice.

Like Curious George?

A.J. Burnett, for one, is so accustomed to his eternal membership in the club that he went through the pain and trouble of having a hideously grinning chimpanzee tattooed on his back, in lurid colors. Little-known but true fact.

AJ Burnett has pitched in six postseason games in his career. Six. Three of them were very good games, giving up no more than two runs in any of them, and he was largely responsible for winning an important Game 2 in the 2009 World Series. But whatever.

Also, I could absolutely imagine AJ Burnett getting a tattoo of a monkey on his back.

Consider, also, Alex Rodriguez one of those people, although unlike Burnett, far less accepting of his fate.

Sigh.

Everyone knows A-Rod is one of the best baseball players in the world. Here's his career slash-line (AVG/OBP/SLG), regular season: .302/.386/.567.

I know batting average is kind of, um, bad, but that's pretty incredible, right? He's 20th all time in OPS, and 12th in slugging. Here's his slash-line for the playoffs: .280/.387/.510. Not as good, sure, but still awesome. (Small sample size notwithstanding- he's only played 65 playoff games to this point. Oh yeah, stats accurate as of Before Game 3 Of The ALDS.)

Here's his slash-line for the World Series. I know SSS applies, but if you're arguing that A-Rod sucks because of his playoff performance, SSS probably isn't your line of argument. Anyway, A-Rod in the World Series: .250 (meh, but it's batting average, so who cares)/.423 (!!!)/.550 (!!!!!).

So Mr. Unclutch Rodriguez actually does better in the World Series than in the regular season. (The SSS people are gonna kill me for that one.) For comparison, here's Mr. Clutch November Derek Jeter in the playoffs (149 games, so not as small of a sample size): .307/.374/.468. And in the World Series: .321/.384/.449.

Let's put those side-by-side. Rodriguez: .280/.387/.510. Jeter: .307/.374/.468. Rodriguez, World Series: .250/.423/.550. Jeter, World Series: .321/.384/.449.

Yep, Mr. Clutch Captain November Hustle TrueYankee Jeter has actually performed worse than Mr. Unclutch Selfish WeDon'tLikeYou Rodriguez in the playoffs. So stop it, Wallace and others.

By the way, both have been awesome at baseball for pretty much forever. Anyway, carry on.

After the 2009 postseason, in which he hit .365 as the Yankees swept through the Minnesota Twins, the Los Angeles Angels and the Philadelphia Phillies on their way to a 27th World Series championship, it seemed as though the pesky primate had been permanently banished from Planet Alex.

And shouldn't it have been? He had an awesome run in the 2009 playoffs, proving that he doesn't have the un-clutch gene which he shouldn't need to prove because it doesn't exist anyway and helped the Yankees win because he played great baseball in the 2009 playoffs and this sentence has become a run-on SEE WHAT YOU DO TO ME WALLACE?!

No longer would he have to wear the label of October Choker, nor hear himself referred to by snide nicknames such as "The Cooler,'' a cruel reference to the chilling effect he seemed to have on teams once he joined them.

I heard he had that nickname because he was a huge fan of Alec Baldwin's movies.

But now, less than two years later, the monkey is hitching a ride on his back again, and if A-Rod doesn't shake him over the next three games, he might be around for a long time.

This is the working plot for the sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Which will probably just be called Planet of the Apes.

If the Yankees wind up losing this ALDS to the Detroit Tigers -- a prospect that became a lot more realistic following Sunday's 5-3 loss to Max Scherzer, Miguel Cabrera & Co. -- there will be plenty of made-to-order culprits, from the manager on down.

Well, yeah, in every playoff series, there's guys who don't do too well. Putting the bulk of playoff failure on A-Rod would be unfair though.

But judging from the reaction of the 50,000-plus patrons in Yankee Stadium on Sunday, who saw Freddy Garcia allow a first-inning, two-run homer to Cabrera, who scratched their heads over Joe Girardi's decision to remove Brett Gardner from the game in the seventh inning and no doubt puzzled over his decision to go to Luis Ayala in a close game rather than the reliable tag team of So-Ro-Mo, there will be no more deserving whipping boy for a Yankee collapse than Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez.

We Yankees fans are not always rational, especially in tense situations like an important playoff game. Because the crowd booed does not mean he deserves the booing.

A-Rod had four at-bats in Sunday's game. He made out in three of them.

Give him some credit, Wallace. He got to first base three times! I'm amazed Cameron Diaz didn't notice, though.

NOTE: I quoted this verbatim. The article actually says this. Seriously.

And after the last two, he was booed heading back to the dugout as if the game were not being played in Yankee Stadium, but Fenway Park.

Those Red Sox fans really hate when A-Rod pops out in the ninth inning of a close, important game!

It isn't fair and it isn't right.

Oh, ok, so now you're going against everything you just said.

*Matthews talks about salaries for a few paragraphs and it's kinda boring, so I'm gonna skip ahead. At one point, he continues his contradiction by saying that A-Rod doesn't deserve to be blamed. He does this after blaming A-Rod.*

there can be no argument that not only is Alex Rodriguez no longer a $30 million ballplayer, he isn't even really worthy of being a cleanup hitter.

Money is a touchy subject, so I won't touch that. As far as cleanup hitter, Rodriguez is 3rd on the Yankees in OBP and fourth in slugging. So, kinda true, but I'm not sure we think agree for the same reasons.

Clearly, Robinson Cano is the best and most feared hitter on this team, as evidenced by the way clubs now routinely pitch around him, and having Alex Rodriguez hit behind him has been less protection than exposure.

You spelled "MVP candidate Curtis Granderson" wrong.

This was never more obvious than in the second-to-last game of the regular season, when Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon walked Cano to get to A-Rod in the third inning of a game he could not afford to lose.

Yeah, that was dumb. It didn't cost the Rays, but it was still dumb. Also, Cano went 0-for-3 that game with only the intentional walk. A-Rod drew 2 walks and scored a run.

Yeah, I'll cherry pick if I wanna. Also, Curtis Granderson.

*Skipping over some more passive-aggressive meandering between blaming A-Rod and saying he doesn't deserve blame.*

Once again, Alex Rodriguez is carrying a passenger on his back every time he goes to the plate.

And he's got three games, at most, to shake him off.

Or, um, the Yankees could you know, win the series. Which would give them more than three games. But whatever.

-Tucker Warner

What do you think? Comment on this post or send any and all questions, comments, or insults to FirstTeeMulligan@yahoo.com. Tucker Warner likes poetry and a nice pair of slacks. You can find him on Twitter at @twarner50.