That the Yankees finally lost a game to Baltimore — the O’s won 4–3 behind Jake Arrieta, who earned the victory in his Major League debut — isn’t cause for concern. That Alex Rodriguez left the game after one inning with stiffness in his groin might not be much of a concern, either. So why’d he have to go and mention his hip surgeon?
Here’s what we know about the injury that forced Rodriguez out of last night’s game after just one inning:
• His groin had been bothering him before the game, and he considered taking himself out of the lineup. But since he’d been able to get loose the previous two nights, he thought he could do it again. Before the game started, he told Ramiro Pena to be ready.
• A-Rod barely moved when Adam Jones singled to his left in the first inning, and Rodriguez knew he was done for the night. (He left the game after that inning.) “It’s a play you make ten out of ten times,” he said.
• He’ll visit Yankees team physician Dr. Chris Ahmad today, and Joe Girardi says that he hopes it’s just a day-to-day situation. He might need a couple days off, but Girardi says it’s a positive that Rodriguez feels stiffness and not pain.
That’s all pretty standard minor-injury stuff. But after the game, A-Rod — who said he didn’t want to “predict or guess” what was wrong — said he also expected to talk to Dr. Marc Philippon, the surgeon who repaired a torn labrum in A-Rod’s hip last year, and who said that Rodriguez didn’t need a follow-up operation last off-season, as had been previously expected.
When asked quite reasonably by a reporter why he would speak to Philippon even though he says his hip feels “fine,” here’s what Rodriguez had to say:
“That’s kind of a crazy question. It’s the right hip, and the right hip is next to (the groin). There’s not a controversy. Don’t look for something that’s not there.”
We actually sort of follow Rodriguez’s logic there, though we’d hardly call this a controversy. But anyone who’s at least a little worried that this injury may be something more than a stiff groin can thank A-Rod for planting the idea in their head.