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New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez had an historic game in Friday’s 8-7 win over the Los Angeles Angels, taking sole possession of second place on the all-time RBI list, along with sole possession of eighth place on the all-time runs list, per ESPN Stats & Info.

Previously even with Barry Bonds at 1,996 career RBI, Rodriguez broke the tie with a single off of Angels pitcher Jered Weaver in the fifth inning, giving the Yankees a 5-0 lead when outfielder Brett Gardner crossed home plate.

Oddly enough, while he’s third on the list provided by MLB.com, Rodriguez is technically considered by MLB to be in second place on the official all-time list, as the RBI only became an official stat in 1920.

Per Yahoo Sports‘ Mark Townsend, both Ruth and Cap Anson would have more RBI than Rodriguez if the stat had been official prior to 1920, though Anson is only listed 11th on the list provided by MLB.com, while Ruth is second.

In any case, Rodriguez reached another milestone later in Friday’s game when he scored the Yankees’ eighth and final run on a seventh-inning single from outfielder Chris Young.

Upon crossing home plate for the 1,950th time in his career, Rodriguez broke a tie with Stan Musial for eighth place on the all-time runs list.

There’s little contention regarding A-Rod’s place on the runs list, as he’s officially considered eighth and is listed as such by MLB.com.

That being said, Rodriguez is only ninth on the list used by Baseball-Reference.com, as the site credits Anson with 1,999 career runs, compared to just 1,719 on MLB.com.

Two things that can’t be argued are Rodriguez’s upcoming milestones, with the slugger currently sitting at 1,999 career RBI and 2,991 hits.

He’ll soon reach 2,000 and 3,000, respectively—possibly even in the same game or at-bat.

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New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez continues inching his way up the MLB all-time list for runs batted in. With an RBI single in the bottom of the fifth against the Los Angeles Angels on Friday night, A-Rod surpassed Barry Bonds for second with 1,997 career RBI, per the Yankees. Rodriguez now trails only Hank Aaron in career RBI.

This moment was inevitable after Rodriguez tied Bonds on May 28 with a sacrifice fly against the Oakland Athletics.

“It means I’m getting old and have been playing for a long time,” Rodriguez said, according to YES Network, via SportsCenter.

The 2015 season has already been a statistically significant one for the 39-year-old. Back on May 7, he hit the 661st home run of his career, which moved him ahead of Willie Mays for fourth.

Whereas Rodriguez moving up the home run ladder is a relatively open-and-shut discussion, his pursuit of Bonds with regard to RBI has sparked a larger debate regarding how the league compiles its stats.

On MLB.com, Rodriguez is listed as third on the list behind Aaron and Babe Ruth, whereas he is fourth on Baseball-Reference.com, with Cap Anson occupying third.

The reason for the discrepancy is that the RBI wasn’t an officially recognized stat until 1920. As Sporting News’ Jesse Spector noted, A-Rod would still have a long way to go to reach Ruth if the pre-1920 stats were considered:

Sports Illustrated‘s Jay Jaffe diligently covered the topic in a May 28 article and argued in conclusion that Baseball-Reference.com had the most complete and accurate RBI list when compared to what else is available:

Long story short: It’s (baseball researcher Pete) Palmer’s data, historically vetted by expert researchers, that forms the foundation of the statistics at Baseball-Reference.com, which while clearly the greatest invention since the wheel remains unofficial in the eyes of MLB. The B-Ref data includes not only totals that have been adjusted from the “official” ones but also statistics from the first organized professional baseball league, the National Association, which ran from 1871 to ’75, and which Elias and MLB do not recognize as a major league. Anson played in the NA from its inception, which is why his numbers for hits, RBIs and other totals differ greatly from what MLB recognizes, as I noted last year while Derek Jeter climbed the all-time hits leaderboard.

Either way, most will agree that Rodriguez has little chance of climbing into first on any list. Aaron is the current leader with 2,297, so A-Rod needs 301 more RBI to move ahead of the Hammer.

It’s possible Rodriguez could get there if he plays another three or four years. But between his injury history, age and on-field decline, staying at a pace where he could supplant Aaron is a long shot.

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The New York Yankees spanked the Seattle Mariners 7-2 Monday night, thanks largely to a nuclear meltdown by Felix Hernandez.

After three innings of solid pitching, Hernandez buckled under some unseen force and began handing out walks, one of which Alex Rodriguez gladly accepted to advance to first in the fourth inning.

Of course, being 39, Rodriguez requires a little oiling to keep the hinges moving, and the Yankees designated hitter applied liberal amounts of stretching and aerobics while waiting at first base.

It’s like looking back at an Olivia Newton-John video:

Notice Rodriguez’s finishing move at the end—a hard adjustment of the peach tree. You can’t stay aero with things running loosey-goosey on you. Rodriguez appreciates that, and while he’s definitely the one major leaguer who jogs in place at stop lights, he sticks to his routine.

Also, A-Rod had more hits than Robinson Cano last night. He may be practicing downward dog between innings, but he’s doing something right.

Dan is on Twitter. He prefers the pigeon pose.

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The Charlotte Stone Crabs, the Tampa Bay Rays’ Single-A affiliate, planned on having an “A-Rod Juice Box Night” on Friday.

The team was obviously poking fun at New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez for his well-documented troubles with “juicing.”

Unfortunately for Stone Crabs fans who were looking forward to Friday’s festivities, it appears the team cancelled the promotion. Both the Yankees and Rays objected because they thought it was in poor taste, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.

[Twitter]

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Fact: Alex Rodriguez passes Willie Mays for 4th on MLB‘s all-time home run list with his 661st career HR.

Bleacher Report will be bringing sports fans the most interesting and engaging Cold Hard Fact of the day, presented by Coors Light.

Source: SportsCenter

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Alex Rodriguez stands alone in fourth place on the all-time home run list after hitting his 661st bomb against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankees Stadium on Thursday, passing Willie Mays.

The majority of the focus, and controversy, surrounding A-Rod has been about the long ball and performance-enhancing drug use. Lost in the shuffle is the fact that the Yankees slugger can surpass a handful of other lofty milestones this season as well.

Stephen Nelson and Scott Miller break down A-Rod’s assault on the record books in this video, presented by Jim Beam.

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It’s official now. Alex Rodriguez owns 660 career home runs, tying him with Willie Mays for fourth on the all-time list. From here, he has only Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds to catch.

Don’t feel much like celebrating? Well, you’re certainly not alone. A man hitting 660 home runs should be a big deal that has us all saying grand things about the greatness of said man’s legacy. But due to the context in which A-Rod’s legacy has been written, to do that in this situation would be a total farce.

Rodriguez is tied with Mays in home runs, yes. But now that their two legacies are side by side, there’s no ignoring how one of these things is not like the other.

We’ll get to that. But first, let’s get on with the acknowledgement.

If you missed it, A-Rod’s 660th home run was his sixth of 2015, and it came off Junichi Tazawa in the eighth inning of the New York Yankees‘ contest against the rival Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park on Friday night. It was a pinch-hit laser beam over the Green Monster, and it looked a little something like this:

If you listen really carefully to that video, you can hear some cheers. Those are coming mainly from the Yankees dugout and from the few pinstripe-clad fans peppered around the stands. Thanks to those two parties, A-Rod’s 660th home run is not a totally joyless event. 

But for everyone else? Well, the boos tell the story.

We know the Yankees’ powers-that-be aren’t happy. Bill Madden and Teri Thompson of the New York Daily News recently highlighted how the Yankees want nothing to do with A-Rod’s 660th home run, as they have no interest in paying him the $6 million milestone bonus they once agreed to.

According to a source, via Madden and Thompson, their reasoning was simple: “They say the records are tainted, and therefore they’re not milestones that can be marketed.”

Take the word “marketed” and switch in the word “celebrated,” and you get an accurate picture of not just how all the Red Sox fans packed into Fenway Park felt about A-Rod’s 660th, but how the vast majority of baseball fans feel about it. 

And by no means is that an unfair stance to take.

We first learned in 2009 that A-Rod had used performance-enhancing drugs between 2001 and 2003. He did things that almost everyone else was also doing at the time, but fans were outraged anyway. But when A-Rod was linked to PEDs again in the Biogenesis scandal of 2013, their outrage was justified. With baseball’s PED protocols well entrenched, A-Rod appeared to break the rules this time. 

There’s no looking past these events, much less forgiving them. Not even a former manager of A-Rod’s could keep himself from using the magic word, as Joe Torre told Fox Sports:

So, a tainted record indeed. And worse, it belongs to a tainted personality. 

Bryan Curtis of Grantland can tell you all about how difficult it’s been to put labels on A-Rod, but one thing he hasn’t been in a long time is likable. He first turned heel when he left the Seattle Mariners in 2000 for the Texas Rangers and their many riches. And ever since, he’s spent an inordinate amount of time mired in on-the-field and off-the-field controversies.

In fairness to A-Rod, here’s one thing that can be said in his defense: it still is—and indeed has been—fun to simply watch him play ball. His 660 home runs may be tainted, but they’re still 660 home runs. They’re also attached to a .942 career OPS and 322 career stolen bases. A clueless fan could say, “Man, that guy must have been fun to watch,” and you couldn’t disagree.

But with legacies, it’s not about just how much fun it was to watch a guy. It’s also about how much fun it was to root for him. That’s the real tragedy of A-Rod’s various misadventures. It’s because of them that his 660th home run feels more like a footnote than an accomplishment, and it’s because of them that his legacy is half of what it might have been.

That point really doesn’t require a comparison for further elaboration. But right now, it just so happens that we have A-Rod’s legacy in one hand and Mays’ in the other.

Between Rodriguez and Mays, there’s not much of an argument to be had about who was the superior player. We can use FanGraphs to put their key statistics side-by-side and come up with this:

The one thing A-Rod has done better than Mays in his career is run the bases, but Mays was no slouch in that department. And as maybe the greatest defensive center fielder ever, Mays more than made up for Rodriguez’s small baserunning advantage with his huge fielding advantage.

Offensively, batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage peg A-Rod and Mays as roughly equal hitters. When you use either OPS+ or wRC+ to adjust for parks and eras, however, Mays comes out ahead by comfortable margins.

And this is without getting into the notion that A-Rod shouldn’t even be tied with Mays on the all-time home run list right now.

Though Mays did need more games to get to 660 home runs than Rodriguez did, he might have hit a lot more under different circumstances. Mays lost home runs to his military service in 1952 and 1953, and he may have lost more to the Polo Grounds’ epic dimensions and Candlestick Park’s hostile weather patterns.

Had things happened differently, it’s entirely possible we’re having a completely different conversation right now. Maybe one about A-Rod having a long way to go before catching Ruth before he can even think about turning his attention to Mays.

But of course, there’s so much more to Mays’ legacy than his numbers. 

Maybe more so than any other player, Mays is defined by tales—and, thanks to “The Catch” in the 1954 World Series, at least one video—of how he played. Along the way, he carved out a reputation as the ideal ballplayer. He’s still the model five-tool player, and his unceasing enthusiasm for the game might as well be his sixth tool.

As James S. Hirsch put it in Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, Mays was “always better than the box score.” The innate charisma of the “Say Hey Kid” has also long since become legendary, so what Hirsch says here rings true:

His legacy, ultimately, will never be about his numbers, his records, or how he helped his team to win. It will be about the pure joy he brought to fans and the loving memories that have been passed to future generations so they might know the magic and beauty of the game.

Sound like the exact opposite of anyone you know?

There is but one sour spot on Mays’ legacy: As much as everyone wants to believe he was clean all along, that may not be entirely true.

Mays played during the days when amphetamines were the drug of choice among major leaguers, and Mays himself was once famously linked to a liquid amphetamine called “red juice” in the 1980s. And though he denied any wrongdoing, he didn’t deny occasionally seeking chemical help.

Said Mays, according to Hirsch: “I would go to the doctor and say to the doctor, ‘Hey, I need something to keep me going. Could you give me some sort of vitamin?’ I don’t know what they put in there, and I never asked a question about anything.”

Whatever it was that Mays took, chances are it’s something that’s now banned by Major League Baseball. To an extent, he and A-Rod are peas in a pod when it comes to performance-enhancing drugs.

But only to an extent.

You can write off A-Rod’s early juicing and Mays’ vitamin habit with the same excuse: They were looking for the same edge as everyone else. A-Rod’s more recent juicing, however, is the deal-breaker. He didn’t really break the rules the first time he used PEDs, but he did the second time around. That’s worthy of scorn, now and forever.

Officially, A-Rod and Mays belong in the same sentence. That may not be the case for long with Rodriguez only one home run away from having fourth place on the all-time list to himself, but it’s the case for now.

Unofficially, however, is a different story. And though hundreds of words can be (and just were) dedicated to the matter, it’s really quite simple in the end.

A-Rod’s legacy is that of a star most everyone can’t wait to forget. Mays’ legacy is that of a star nobody wants to forget. 

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.

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Alex Rodriguez is officially tied for fourth with Willie Mays on MLB‘s all-time home run list, per MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch, after hitting the 660th home run of his career against the Red Sox on May 1.

There’s a clause in A-Rod’s contract that is supposed to lead to a $6 million bonus for the historic accomplishment, but on May 2, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said the Yankees don’t plan to honor the fee.

ESPNNewYork.com’s Wallace Matthews had more from Cashman, speaking before Saturday’s Yankees-Red Sox game at Fenway Park:

We have the right but not the obligation to do something, and that’s it. We’re going to follow the contract as we follow all contracts, so there is no dispute, from our perspective. …

We’re going to honor our responsibilities of the contract. (But) how it’s been reported . . . and what the contract actually says are two different things. It’s not “you do this, you get that.” It’s completely different. It’s not all of a sudden, we’re choosing not to do something. If we choose to pursue something we’ll choose to pursue it. If we choose not to, it’s our right not to. In both cases, we’re honoring the contract.

Matthews also laid out more details on the situation and what the contract says:

According to multiple reports, the deal was drawn up as an addendum to the 10-year, $275 million contract Rodriguez signed with the Yankees after opting out of his previous contract in 2007. It is said to call for five payments of $6 million for reaching the following home run milestones: 660 (Willie Mays’ total), 714 (Babe Ruth), 755 (Hank Aaron), 762 (Barry Bonds) and 763, which would break Bonds’ all-time record. …

A source who was involved in the drafting of the agreement told ESPNNewYork.com that the numbers are explicitly spelled out in the contract; the Yankees contend that the bonuses are contingent upon the club’s ability to market the accomplishment, which they contend is impossible now due to Rodriguez’s admissions of, and punishment for, illegal PED usage.

MLB.com showed the home run:

Barry Bonds congratulated Rodriguez on the accomplishment:

Katie Sharp of River Avenue Blues reported it was Rodriguez’s first home run as a pinch hitter.

Rodriguez spoke about the at-bat and the achievement after the game, via MLB.com:

Alex Speier of The Boston Globe provided more details:

While Rodriguez once seemed a genuine threat to Bonds for the top spot, many wondered over the last year whether A-Rod would even reach Mays. Entering the season, the 39-year-old needed six home runs to tie Mays and seven to pass the legendary outfielder.

Rodriguez’s power numbers have declined over the last few years, and there was no telling how he’d perform in 2015 after missing the entire 2014 season.

But then the year started, and the A-Rod of present looked like the A-Rod of old. MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince joked that a lot has changed in the space of a year:

FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver thinks Rodriguez could present a major litmus test for baseball writers if he continues swinging the bat this well:

Whatever the ruling regarding Rodriguez’s contract, the focus will now shift to whether he can pass Babe Ruth for third on the all-time list. The Sultan of Swat had 714 home runs over his illustrious career.

It would take a Herculean effort for Rodriguez to reach that total in 2015, but he could reasonably reach Ruth in 2016.

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1. Alex Rodriguez charges at Willie Mays

Imagine: Alex Rodriguez, Knight in Shining Armor.

He is the story of April, no fooling. He is smashing home runs, winning games, jacking up his on-base percentage (.412!), making love to television cameras with those doe eyes (as ever) and kissing babies (presumably).

This is at once great news and chilling news for the Yankees, of course.

Great news because, well, how cool is it that the old clunker of a car you thought would have to be junked turns out to purr?

Chilling news because, well, when A-Rod at 39 is easily the best hitter in your lineup, it’s more of an indictment on your lineup than anything else.

And chilling news because the Yankees now are on a collision course with the $6 million bonuses they owe him for landmark home runs, starting with matching Mays at No. 660 (A-Rod is at 658 now).

The club sent several flares up over the winter indicating it is prepared to go to arbitration in an effort to weasel out of the bonuses. No matter that the Yankees entered into them with full knowledge back in 2007 that they were surrounded by a steroid minefield, as detailed in the Mitchell Report, and anyone was suspect. Where was that dogged investigator Howie Spira when they really needed him?

Revamping his image for approximately the 1,000th time, A-Rod could seize the good-guy high road in a flash. Here’s how:

A-Rod comes out strong and hard, saying he will donate the $6 million to charity when he hits No. 660. Maybe to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Maybe to charities supported during Yankees Hope Week (which, incidentally, is an incredibly inspirational and meaningful annual tradition). How petty would the Yankees look if they fought that?

A-Rod passes on blood money for an inauthentic milestone and looks like a prince in the process. The Yankees get some satisfaction. Win-win for both sides. You’re welcome.

Sure, that’s a lot of dough to give up, but Rodriguez is due $61 million in salary over the next three years. Plus he’ll get another $6 million each when he hits Nos. 714 (tying Babe Ruth), 755 (tying Hank Aaron), 762 (tying Barry Bonds) and 763 (breaking the all-time record).

By the time he hits those, he’ll be viewed as cleaner than a bar of Irish Spring after delivering cupful after cupful of untainted urine in tests. And maybe by then, the Yanks will be happy to pay him his bonuses. And at that point, he can do whatever he wants with all that cash. Spring for some more Armani suits. Get a new hip (or two). Donate to the Centaur Hall of Fame. Whatever.

Point is, the Big Guy is back and swinging it, so who are we to doubt that the good times are just beginning for him and the Yankees?

2. Those Frisky Royals

Kansas City picked up exactly where it left off last year, waxing the Los Angeles Angels of Josh Hamilton Doesn’t Exist and knocking the air out of the Oakland A’s.

But anybody who watched them take on the A’s over the weekend saw that these are not the same Royals. They are another year older, another year more confident and far less willing to take anybody’s crap.

That’s all great—to a point. No question, Brett Lawrie’s slide that took out shortstop Alcides Escobar on Friday night was late, too late, with spikes too high, and Kansas City was right to retaliate the next day. Which the Royals did, when Yordano Ventura drilled Lawrie. That was old-school, now-we’re-even baseball.

Sunday was over the top. Kelvin Herrera throwing a 99 mph fastball behind Lawrie was beyond the pale, but when he pointed to his head as if to warn the A’s of what would happen next, that’s not OK, and it should draw a significant suspension. Yes, Scott Kazmir had hit Lorenzo Cain in the foot during the first inning, drawing a warning from the umpires and beginning an Ejection Festival that saw Royals manager Ned Yost, pitching coach Dave Eiland and bench coach Don Wakamatsu get sent to the showers early.

But there is a fine line between having your teammates’ back and hurting your team by getting yourself suspended. Herrera crossed it.

The teams next meet in Oakland June 26-28. Stay tuned.

3. Tigers, Tigers, Pitching Bright

Detroit lost Max Scherzer to free agency and Justin Verlander to the disabled list, yet the Tigers’ staff ERA of 2.61 was the best in the American League heading into this week. Also, their 2.48 starters’ ERA led the league.

Aside from their Murderers’ Row of Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez and Yoenis Cespedes, the story of the year so far in Motown is the brilliance of Shane Greene and Alfredo Simon.

Greene, acquired from the Yankees last Dec. 5 as part of a three-team deal with the Diamondbacks, has surrendered just one earned run in 23 innings. The 26-year-old right-hander throws six different pitches and so far is backing up general manager Dave Dombrowski’s faith in him.

The Tigers acquired Simon from Cincinnati six days after Greene. Following Monday night’s start against the Yankees, Simon is 3-0 with a 1.74 ERA through three starts.

4. Other Early Numbers

Remember when Dodgers fans were wondering where the power would come from after they traded Matt Kemp to San Diego and let Hanley Ramirez walk as a free agent? Through Monday, they led the NL with 17 homers. Adrian Gonzalez smashed five homers in Los Angeles’ first three games and leads the team. Alex Guerrero, Howie Kendrick, Joc Pederson and Yasiel Puig have two each.

Fewest homers in the NL? Milwaukee was stuck on three heading into this week—and Ryan Braun was stuck on one.

The Astros started the week leading the AL West, the latest they’ve led a division since they started 9-6 and led the NL Central on April 20, 2007.

Zack Greinke now is 20-1 with a 1.95 ERA in 30 starts against NL West clubs since signing with the Dodgers in December 2012. Next up: in San Diego, against the Padres, on Friday.

Four clubs have yet to have a baserunner thrown out stealing through Monday: The Reds are 14-of-14, Boston is 9-of-9, the Mets are 8-of-8 and Oakland is 7-of-7.

Through his start Monday night, the Pirates’ A.J. Burnett has 2,386 career strikeouts, second among active pitchers behind the Yankees’ CC Sabathia (2,452). Burnett ranked 43rd on the all-time strikeout list, 10 behind Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax.

5. Another Marlins Manager to Bite the Dust?

It would be ridiculous, of course, if Mike Redmond is tossed overboard this year during the season, yet rumblings persist, according to Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald, that owner Jeffrey Loria is upset and that this week’s series in Philadelphia could determine Redmond’s fate.

Loria has a history of gassing managers early, from Jeff Torborg in May 2003, to Fredi Gonzalez in June 2010. With him and managers, I still think the finest moment I’ve heard came when then-Marlins manager Joe Girardi told Loria to “Shut the f–k up” during a game not long before he was fired in 2006. Loria was sitting in the stands near the Marlins’ dugout, chirping at the umpires.

Giancarlo Stanton’s recent postgame statement that “the fire is not there” certainly was damning to both the Marlins and Redmond, but that observation also might have simply been Stanton trying to grow into his $325 million contract and do what he thinks a leader should do.

Regardless, 13 games into the season, it is far too early to read much into anything. The Marlins are talented. They are far better than they are playing. And for the same reasons they loved Redmond when they hired him before the 2013 season, those skills should get Miami back on track, and sooner rather than later.

6. This Archie Is No Comic Book Hero

So far, so good for Diamondbacks rookie Archie Bradley, who on Thursday nearly became the first pitcher ever to beat a Cy Young Award winner and a World Series MVP in his first two career appearances.

Bradley outdueled the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw with six shutout innings in Arizona in his first outing of the season.

Thursday in San Francisco, Bradley held the Giants to two runs and four hits in 6.2 innings but came away with a no-decision in Arizona’s 7-6 win.

Bradley is 1-0 with a 1.42 ERA in two starts, and the Diamondbacks like what they see.

“He’s thrown that way all spring,” manager Chip Hale says. “He’s very focused. You never have to worry about him losing it, mentally. It’s unbelievable, the difference I’ve seen in him this spring versus last fall.”

Says catcher Tuffy Gosewisch: “He’s got great, great stuff. As long as he continues to work hard, he’s going to get better. This is what I saw all spring.”

7. Jon Lester’s Glove Toss

If you missed how he recorded this out at first against the Padres on Saturday, it’s worth taking a look:

8. Weekly Power Rankings

1. Pete Rose: Newly signed as a television analyst on Fox Sports, Rose unexpectedly takes the lead for Comeback Would-Be Hall of Famer of the Year.

2. Jon Lester: Fantastic glove toss. Now, can he incorporate that into his pickoff move?

3. Patriots’ Day: The Red Sox now are 69-51 all-time on the early-start day. As Paul Revere once said, “One if by a fastball, two if by a curve, three if by a Big Papi big fly.”

4. Josh Donaldson and Brett Lawrie: The two third basemen, traded for each other, have big weekends. Donaldson hits three homers against the Braves, including a walk-off Saturday night, and Lawrie is at the center of hostilities between the Athletics and Royals.

5. Chip Hale: Tells his Diamondbacks to gather in the dugout pregame Saturday to watch the San Francisco Giants receive their World Series rings. Classy plus educational move, but with the Giants equaling their worst 14-game start since moving to San Francisco in 1958 (4-10), the Snakes had to be wondering: These guys won the World Series?

9. Final Add, Jackie Robinson Day

While former Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey (rightfully) gets all of the credit for steering baseball into a new era in 1947, there were others involved. One of them was Rickey’s assistant at the time who later became an extraordinary GM himself, Buzzie Bavasi.

Happily, Buzzie’s son, Bill, is involved in the game and last November left the Reds, where he was working as a special assistant to GM Walt Jocketty, to run the MLB Scouting Bureau. Though B/R missed him before Jackie Robinson Day last week, we caught up with him right after and he had a great story to tell, passed down from his father.

“Mr. Rickey had a lot of people in the organization go out and check Jackie out because it was going to be such a tough thing to do, and it was going to take someone of special character to do this,” Bill Bavasi says. “My guess is they had the approach that they would only have one bite of the apple, which probably wasn’t true, but it would have been just once in Mr. Rickey’s lifetime.

“Buzzie was one of the guys who got sent out to check Jackie out. Buzzie was running a club in their farm system, and he would work in Brooklyn in the winter. Before they signed Jackie, and I really don’t know where this happened, but Buzzie went out to check him out—either before they signed him, or before they brought him up. Buzzie was one of the guys dispatched to see if the guy was ready.

“Buzzie knew everyone would be watching him from a scouting standpoint, so Buzzie chose to sit behind his wife. He met Rachel, eavesdropped on her a little, watched Jackie play from behind her, or close enough to know what was going on.

“He reported back to Mr. Rickey: She’s a real special woman, and if Jackie’s good enough for her, he’s good enough for us.”

9a. Rock ‘n’ Roll Lyric of the Day

Being that I’m headed to see this band Wednesday night, I’d like to send this one out to the fightin’ Kansas City Royals and Oakland A’s:

“I don’t want anything I done to be nobody’s fault

“Even if they got more money and mouth than they got balls.

“That’s just how it went down, right or wrong, it’s just that way.

“Just ’cause I don’t run my mouth don’t mean I got nothin’ to say”

— Drive-By Truckers, “Marry Me”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

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We all knew the script. In his return from a season-long suspension, Alex Rodriguez was supposed to be over-the-hill dead weight in the middle of the New York Yankees‘ lineup in 2015.

Evidently, he must have lost his copy. All of a sudden, A-Rod is clobbering the ball all over the place and, in doing so, carrying an otherwise sluggish Yankees offense on his shoulders.

What happened Friday night at Tropicana Field is a microcosm of the whole affair. The soon-to-be 40-year-old Rodriguez led the Yankees to a 5-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays by collecting four RBI on two home runs—Nos. 657 and 658 for his career, putting him just two behind Willie Mays on the all-time list—and a go-ahead RBI single in the eighth inning.

We’ll get back to that RBI hit in good time. But since you probably came here for the dingers first and foremost, let’s check out the dingers.

The first was an absolute moonshot that ESPN Stats & Info measured at 477 feet, the longest in the majors so far this season. Here it is in moving pictures:

And here’s the second, which was a laser down the left field line:

Thanks largely to these two dingers, A-Rod drove in as many runs as the Rays themselves. Per Erik Boland of Newsday, that prompted Yankees skipper Joe Girardi to state the obvious:

It’s not a stretch to say A-Rod has carried the Yankees offense. He’s hitting .344 with a 1.214 OPS, which stands out in an offense that’s hitting just .222 with a .712 OPS as a whole. According to FanGraphs, Rodriguez has a laughably large margin in park-adjusted offense over all other Yankees regulars.

Of course, A-Rod can’t possibly keep this up. I know that. You know that. We all know that.

There’s the reality that he’s darn near 40, for one. Another reality is that he hasn’t been productive for a full season since 2007. Then there’s how it’s beyond unlikely that he’s going to continue producing at a high level as long as he’s striking out more than 30 percent of the time. The BABIP gods are favoring him with a .438 average on balls in play, but that will disintegrate eventually.

However, just because we must acknowledge A-Rod’s eventual slowdown doesn’t mean we can’t also give him his due credit. There is, after all, a lot more than just luck driving his early hot hitting.

At the least, you’ve probably noticed that A-Rod hasn’t been getting by on squibbers and Texas Leaguers in the early goings. Seemingly every ball he’s put in play has been hit hard.

Your eyes haven’t deceived you. According to FanGraphs, A-Rod came into Friday night’s game with a career-high 25 percent line-drive rate. That there’s good for collecting base hits. Elsewhere, he also came in boasting a 50 percent fly-ball rate with an infield fly-ball rate of 0 percent. That there’s good for power.

Going back to the eye test, it sure seems like a lot of this hard contact is coming from Rodriguez’s ability to punish mistakes.

For example, you saw him hit a high fastball that was supposed to be low for his first home run on Friday night. The same thing happened when he hit his first home run of the season. When he hit his RBI single, he got a low slider that just didn’t do much. And so on.

But this is not to suggest that pitchers only need to stop making mistakes and wait for the luck dragons to abandon A-Rod to slow him down. Not making mistakes is a good place to start, but he has also quietly shown that the general approach pitchers are using against him isn’t going to work.

One thing this approach involves is more fastballs. FanGraphs put A-Rod’s fastball percentage at 60.4 coming into Friday’s action, which is higher than the league average of 58.5 and several ticks higher than what he was getting between 2011 and 2013.

This isn’t working. Brooks Baseball had A-Rod hitting .353 with both of his homers against heaters at the start of play on Friday, and then he hit two more home runs on heaters.

As if it wasn’t self-evident enough, here’s ESPN.com’s Buster Olney to note that A-Rod has erased a pretty big question mark with his domination of fastballs:

But the approach to A-Rod hasn’t just involved a steadier diet of hard stuff. It’s also involved a steadier diet of inside stuff.

Owen Watson of FanGraphs noticed as much before Friday’s game, noting that Rodriguez had so far seen 8.4 percent more pitches on the inner third of the zone than the average hitter. That’s an indication that pitchers don’t think his aging bat is quick enough to hit anything close to him.

Well, about that…here’s a plot of his batting averages, courtesy of Brooks Baseball:

Once again, this was before Friday night’s game. Not included here is the laser that A-Rod hit for his second homer of the night, which came on a two-seamer that drifted over the inner third of the zone.

Fortunately for opposing pitchers, Rodriguez certainly isn’t unbeatable.

You can see that he’s been dicey beyond the area where he’s being pitched the most. And while he’s crushing fastballs, he came into Friday’s game hitting .100 against breaking stuff and .250 against off-speed stuff, with just one extra-base hit against both. Also, here’s a chart that shows he’s done a lot of swinging and missing at the slow stuff.

As such, the message actually appears to be quite simple: stop being so predictable. Pitch A-Rod not like some helpless geezer but like a perfectly capable major league hitter.

Because that’s what he is, folks. Against all odds, that’s what he is. 

And that’s OK. If we’re being honest, this new script is a lot more fun than the old one.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.

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