Raise your hand if you saw this coming. Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees, who turns 40 next month, has two surgically-repaired hips, was disgraced by a year-long Biogenesis suspension, and really wasn't even wanted by the Yankees is on pace to hit 38 home runs and drive in 90 runs. If your hand is raised, you probably aren't telling the truth.
Even Rodriguez seems at a loss to explain how well he is hitting, responding to query regarding how he is doing what he is doing by saying "it's a good question."
Rodriguez has 11 home runs, 26 RBI and a .276 batting average. He has hit .313 in May with a .993 OPS. He has an OPS of .940, right at his 18-year career average of .942, thus far.
Maybe even more impressively. Rodriguez is winning over the Yankee locker room and even media members who have reviled the controversial slugger for year.
“It is amazing,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said after the Yankees finished off a sweep of the defending American League champion Kansas City Royals to put the Yanks, a little unfathomably considering their recent play, a game-and-a-half up in the AL East.
Amazingly, Rodriguez is the leader of this club, the go-to-guy for the media and one of the guys the Yankees want up in a big spot. It has been a stirring transition for a player that was nearly ostracized from the franchise because of his reckless and selfish behavior during the Biogenesis investigation that resulted in his one-season ban.
Whether you like him or hate him, and I know that over the years I have been one of those in the anti-A-Rod camp, you have to admire what he has done this year.
He has kept his name out of the headlines for anything not baseball-related. He has said and done all the right things. And he has hit far better than anyone had a right to expect.
The Yankees clearly didn't know what to expect, with GM Brian Cashman saying "I can't expect Alex to be anything." Yours truly even opined that the Yankees might "simply have to write Rodriguez a check to go away."
Clearly, though, that was wrong. The Yankees are an offensively-challenged team with only Rodriguez and the resurgent Mark Teixeira providing consistent power in the middle of the lineup. The Yankees, surprisingly atop the American League East, are not going to stay there unless Rodriguez keeps mashing the ball.
The last time Rodriguez was dominant player was 2010, when he hit 30 home runs and drove in 125 runs. Since then he has had the two hip surgeries, the Biogenesis suspension and played more than 100 games only once, hitting 18 homers in 122 games in 2012. He played only 44 games in 2013.
''I haven't played a lot of baseball in the last two years, but I feel like I'm in a good place. I'm happy. I'm having fun,'' said Rodriguez.
''I think for me in a weird way the time off was a blessing in disguise. I was able to get some rest, change my workout regimen a little bit. I just feel like I'm in a better place and more explosive than I've been.''
Rodriguez has this season passed Willie Mays for fourth place on the all-time home run list. He is now also third on all-time RBI list, and tops in American League history. He is also just 19 hits from 3,000.
The Yankees may still dispute whether or not they need to pay Rodriguez bonus money for passing Mays on the all-time home run list. There is no dispute, though, over how important he is to their chances of reaching the playoffs this season.