Alex Rodriguez would not talk about the boos that rained down on him in the eighth inning last night. He was not as upset with the fans as he was with his own failure to at least tie the game or drive in the go-ahead run when he came up with the bases loaded and the Yankees down by a run.
"It was a fat pitch," Rodriguez said. "It was right there, a good pitch."
Instead of driving the Brian Stokes offering, Rodriguez popped up to second base, and the Bombers did not threaten in the ninth inning, falling, 7-6, to Tampa Bay.
For Rodriguez, it was the opposite of Opening Day, when he made an error in the first inning before winning the fans over by singling, stealing second and scoring the go-ahead run in the seventh and then hitting a two-run homer in the eighth to earn a curtain call. Last night, he started with an RBI double in the first but was booed at the end by those who stuck around amid snowflakes.
"There are no excuses," Rodriguez said. "We are gonna get better, but there are no excuses."
Rodriguez's night started to take a turn for the worse in the fifth inning, when he bounced into a double play after Bobby Abreu had led off with a walk. Still, when he came up in the eighth after Abreu had bounced into a 1-2 force play with the bases loaded, the Stadium faithful cheered and chanted "Let's go A-Rod!"
But the cheers turned to jeers after the inning-ending pop-up. Rodriguez opted out of commenting on the boo-birds. "I don't get into that," Rodriguez snapped. "I enjoy playing and that's what I am focused on. I am not going to get into that."
Rodriguez was angrier about missing a pitch he knew he should have driven. "I don't know what (pitch) it was, but it was a fat one," Rodriguez said. "I was frustrated."
The weather, however, was not a factor.
"It didn't bother me," Rodriguez said. "For me, the toughest conditions are rain and wind. The cold really isn't a problem. That was no excuse."
