I understand that Rays-Yankees II was the bigger national story, but the thing you should be most happy about coming out of yesterday’s game is that John Rodriguez finally delivered a big hit – just his second of the spring – to help the Rays win the ballgame. Look, I’m not taking anything away from the zombie-looking Shelly Duncan or his 40 games of big league experience, but this guy doesn’t represent anything “dirty” about the Yankees. Maybe it speaks a little bit to Joe Girardi who either can’t or didn’t choose to stop Duncan from doing that, but its mostly just one hot-headed career minor leaguer who decided to act like a tough guy. Even the hit batsman earlier in the game was later called by virtually all sources “likely unintentional.”
But no, the bigger story was John Rodriguez finally delivering a big hit – a hit he DESPERATELY needed for his stat line – to lead the Rays to the win yesterday. (Recap/Box)
His batting average still isn’t pretty – sitting at .083 – but if he hopes to compete with Eric Hinske and Jon Weber for the final outfield position on the roster, he’s going to need to come up with big hits like this one.
You have to wonder if any number of hits is going to be enough, though. By all accounts, Rodriguez is a corner outfielder because of his fielding ability and speed to the ball. Same with Weber. Eric Hinske, meanwhile, is a converted infielder who plays the corners because he needed to stick on the roster. He’s definitely not a centerfielder. With Justin Ruggiano now playing with the minor leaguers, who is left that can play centerfield?
Ben Zobrist got a look there before his injury, but he’d have to be considered a project at best. You could always slide C.C. over if you had to, but he’s never seemed to be comfortable as a centerfielder. After that, there’s really no one else, unless you begin to look outside the organization.
At this point, I still think Eric Hinske is the front-runner – experience plus ability to play two infield positions on top of the outfielder – to join Willy Aybar, Elliot Johnson, and Shawn Riggans on the Rays’ opening day roster, but that could change if the club goes the anti-Evan Longoria route.
Aybar has been hitting well lately, likely causing the Rays to think that – if they had to – they could send Longoria down to AAA to start the year and still have capable hands covering third base. Let’s say, for instance, that happens and all of a sudden Willy Aybar is the starting third baseman and there’s an open roster spot. Immediately you think that Joel Guzman is probably the front-runner for that spot, but with the way he’s looked this spring and his inability to play the outfield, that’s not necessarily a slam dunk.
These next few weeks should play out very interestingly as we try to figure out who exactly will be in uniform when the ump yells “Play ball!” in Baltimore.
Tags: John Rodriguez
March 13th, 2008 at 10:03 am
This guy doesn’t represent anything “dirty” The Yank & Shelly Duncan were “dirty” as Maddon & gomes said “What you saw today is a definition of a dirty play,” Maddon said. “There’s no room for that in our game. It’s contemptible. It’s wrong. It’s borderline criminal. I can’t believe they did that. “That was a blatant attempt to hurt Aki. And it was set up, it was planned, it was premeditated; it was all of the above. I don’t know what the difference is between that and a high stick in hockey. It was that bad.”
Gomes questioned Girardi’s decision to bring Duncan on the road trip given his comments.”Shelley Duncan went in the paper and said he was going to do this,” Gomes said. “This was premeditated on his part. He said if he had the opportunity to go in hard he was going to do it. To me, that makes it a little bit worse. It was uncalled for on his part.” we also don’t need another IF we have several players to fill in to benny gest back plus our 3rd baseman is Longoria is hitting .368 this spring with 1 homer 1 triple, 2 doubles, 7 hits, 4 BB, & five RBIs in nine games. He also has a 737 SLG and 520 OBP. I think outside the organization for outfield help and pick up free-agent Kenny Lofton.
March 13th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Ok guys! I will be back on Easter. On my way to Amsterdam in two hours. Very little news about the Rays there. I will probably get ticked off at someone in Holland wearing a Yankee hat and never seen a game. “That’s life”
March 13th, 2008 at 10:48 am
What I meant was that Shelley Duncan acting that way doesn’t necessarily mean that the Yankees as a whole are a dirty team, but rather than Duncan is a dirty player and that Girardi is also at fault for either chosing not to or being unable to control him, but I really don’t think you can say it makes the whole team dirty. I don’t like them, but Jeter and Pettitte and Posada and the like have always played a classy game of baseball. Duncan on the other hand is a tool who should get drilled in the back with a Kid K fastball.
March 13th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Has there been any other evidence that Duncan plays dirty? If not, I would withhold judgment. It was a dirty play, but that does not make him a dirty player. Lots of players have had incidents. I may have mentioned this here before, but among the most famous involved a now consensus Hall of Fame pitcher and one of the most respected representatives of the game, Juan Marichal. In 1965, he hit catcher Johnny Roseboro over the head with his bat not once but twice, opening a cut that required, I think, 8 stitches. It was one of the most brutal acts ever seen on a ballfield. And he was both older and more established than Duncan at the time.
There have been plenty of others. For example, although he was terribly disappointing in TB (actually a no-show), by all accounts Roberto Alomar was a respected man. But the one spitting incident led many to assume he was a bad character. Not true and not fair.
We need to tone down the invective and focus on the games.