Lookout Landing: On Alex Rodriguez

Of course, that’s not the proper conclusion. It isn’t any more fair to say that A-Rod improves under pressure now than it was to say that he folded under pressure before. What this is are the vagaries of sample size playing out on a grand theater. A-Rod’s up to 202 career playoff plate appearances. 202 PAs isn’t a whole lot. When you only have 202 PAs, a game like Alex’s today can change your OPS 38 points. Put simply, Alex hasn’t had enough of an opportunity to show us how good he is in the playoffs one way or the other, and he still hasn’t. We don’t know much more about him today than we did two weeks ago. As always, the best assumption until proven otherwise is that there’s nothing magical about playing in the playoffs.

Sample size, naturally, won’t be the theme of the response. People will spin this as Alex being a changed man, as Alex doing something to find his inner peace and stay calm in the spotlight. It’s the only way for his previous critics to stay consistent with the stuff they used to write, because no one wants to admit to having been that wrong that much.

But while that should bother me, it doesn’t, or at least it doesn’t now, because if nothing else, the story’s different. At long last, the story is different. Every article discussing how Kate Hudson is helping keep Alex comfortable is an article that doesn’t unfairly rip him to shreds, and though that may not really seem like much progress, it’s a step along the path towards finally giving due credit to one of the greatest players the game has ever seen.

Must print out..fold over..stamp bogus highball logo on napkin..bring to bar...slide under Yankeelung O’Dooley’s drink.