No matter what side of the A-Rod Saga you reside on, there is no doubt Alex Rodriguez has brought passion and offense back to the desperate Yankees.
He is the Straw That Stirs the Drink.
Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, but there is no doubt the Yankees players and manager Joe Girardi have Rodriguez's back.
The passion they showed as a team Sunday night in a 9-6 win over the Red Sox at Fenway Park must show up today at Yankee Stadium in a day-night doubleheader against the lowly Blue Jays. The Yankees have shown themselves to be a much different team with A-Rod. The numbers since his return bear that out.
Anthony J Causi
Alex Rodriguez
Before A-Rod, the Yankees were hitting .240 as a team. After A-Rod, they are batting .303. Before A-Rod, the Yankees were averaging 3.8 runs per game; after A-Rod, they are averaging nearly 5.5 runs per game.
The Yankees have scored nine runs or more in four of the last six games. In their first 110 games without A-Rod, they scored nine runs or more just seven times.
What a difference A-Rod makes. Yes, the Yankees players are happy to see A-Rod on the field again.
The public also is getting to see a different Girardi, one who is not a robot manager, locked into his binder and making decisions solely based on numbers. Girardi has come out of this A-Rod mess the clear winner, walking the fine line of working for the Yankees while doing his best to protect his player.
It's not just the way Girardi exploded on umpire Brian O'Nora after O'Nora refused to throw out Ryan Dempster, who hit A-Rod on a 3-0 pitch, but it is the passion with which Girardi has been explaining his feelings about the A-Rod Adventure as the steroid-stained slugger wages war against the Yankees organization.
Rodriguez is deeply appreciative. Again after Sunday night's win, he said of his manager, "It all starts with Joe Girardi. His support for me has been incredible. He has always been there for me."
It really has been incredible, especially with the way A-Rod has worn out his welcome with the power brokers in the Yankees organization.
Girardi needs A-Rod and the players need A-Rod if the Yankees are to somehow magically win the AL East or a wild card.
Noted Brett Gardner, "I'm not sure how I would feel if I was on a different team, but Alex is my teammate and obviously we are glad to have him back in the room and glad to have him back on the field helping us win ballgames.''
That is the essence of what's going on here. If A-Rod were struggling and if the offense had gotten worse with A-Rod's arrival, Rodriguez would be getting a lot less support from everyone around him. He would be a distraction.
Waging war against your own organization, especially the Yankees organization that won 26 world championships without A-Rod and one with him, would be a signal to the fans to boo A-Rod with the same viciousness Red Sox fans displayed.
That drama-filled, payback sixth-inning home run to center A-Rod blasted off Dempster that led to a four-run rally and the win has given A-Rod another chance with the fans. It will be fascinating to see the response he receives at Yankee Stadium today.
A-Rod has been saying all along the Yankees view five runs a game as a baseline with this lineup after the addition of the red-hot Alfonso Soriano. They are sitting at 5.46 runs per game since Rodriguez returned.
Cano summed it up best the other day, telling me, "There are a lot of negative things out there, and I don't really want to know about them. All I know now is everybody's cool and everybody's healthy. That's what matters. The fact that Alex apologized to me and some other players means a lot."
Scoring runs helps, too.
kevin.kernan@nypost.com
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