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If they aren’t mashing the panic button in New York, they’re at least tapping it forcefully.

Yes, the New York Yankees enter play Monday as the first-place team in the American League East, a position they’ve held since July 3. But after a disheartening sweep at the hands of the hard-charging Toronto Blue Jays, the Bronx Bombers’ division hold feels tenuous at best.

Granted, everyone is losing to the Jays these days.

Toronto netted All-Star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and ace left-hander David Price at the trade deadline, and since the first trade July 28, the Blue Jays have gone 11-1, grabbing the top wild-card spot.

Now, after their dominant three-game showing at Yankee Stadium, Toronto sits 1.5 games behind New York. That breath the Yankees are feeling on the back of their neck? It smells like maple syrup.

The Yankees actually held Toronto’s vaunted offense in check over the weekend, limiting the Blue Jays to 10 runs in three games, and twice holding them to two runs.

But the Yanks’ bats, which have propelled them for much of the season, went ice-cold. New York plated just a single run Friday before getting shut out by Price and the Toronto bullpen Saturday.

In Sunday’s series closer, behind ace Masahiro Tanaka, the Yankees again put up a zero, managing just three singles against Jays starter Marco Estrada and a trio of relievers.

Tanaka pitched well enough, surrendering only a pair of solo homers to Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista. But that was all it took for Toronto, which lately seems to be finding every conceivable way to win.

There’s still plenty of baseball left. It’s almost impossible to believe the Jays can stay this hot—loaded lineup and deadline cavalry notwithstanding.

That was skipper Joe Girardi‘s line after Saturday’s loss.

“You could make a lot of these two games and obviously, I said this was an important series going in,” Girardi said, per Dan Martin of the New York Post. “But really, what’s going to determine the division is you’ve got two months to go.”

Well, now it’s three games, but the point is taken. The Yankees, however, need to regroup in a hurry.

Beginning Tuesday, they embark on a six-game road trip that begins with a three-game series against the Cleveland Indians and concludes with a trio of contests north of the border against these same Blue Jays.

If Toronto sweeps, or even wins, that series, it’s probable we’ll have a new leader in the AL East. And the two clubs will meet for four more in New York beginning Sept. 10.

Any Yankees turnaround will begin with the offense, which ranks second in MLB in runs scored (yes, they trail Toronto).

But the starting rotation, which owns an ERA of 4.31, needs to pick up the slack. To that end, how huge would it have been for New York to grab Price from the Detroit Tigers at the deadline, adding him to its arsenal and keeping the stud southpaw away from Toronto?

That’s not merely idle speculation. General manager Brian Cashman was interested in Price, according to Bill Madden of the New York Daily News, but Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos was quicker on the trigger, wowing the Tigers with a package of blue-chip talent.

The Yankees did not match the Blue Jays’ offer. As Madden noted, Cashman was unwilling to part with top prospects Luis Severino, Aaron Judge or Greg Bird.

Now, of course, it’s a moot point. The Yankees stood pat, Price is a Blue Jay and, as Madden put it, “that tremor being felt in the AL East” is emanating from Canada.

The question now is whether the Bombers can take their finger off the panic button and answer back with a little shaking of their own.

All statistics and standings current as of Aug. 9 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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From the perspective that it didn’t lead to a win, Luis Severino’s major league debut was a failure.

From just about every other perspective, however, it was a success. Severino may not have led the New York Yankees to victory, but he looked the part of a pitcher who could lead them to a handful of must-have wins in what’s left of the 2015 season.

That performance went down Tuesday night in the Yankees’ 2-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. The 21-year-old right-hander out of the Dominican Republic was responsible for both of Boston’s runs, but they came in a five-inning stint that featured just two hits with zero walks and seven strikeouts.

The best major league debut ever? Hardly.

But as the Yankees’ public relations department noted, Severino’s debut was good enough to put him in the American League history books:

In all, what the Yankees saw Tuesday night was their prized prospect—No. 16 in baseball according to MLB.com and No. 17 according to Baseball America—living up to the hype.

And boy did they need to see that.

With Michael Pineda currently out with a forearm injury, Ivan Nova having only recently returned from Tommy John surgery and CC Sabathia and Masahiro Tanaka struggling to recreate their glory days, the Yankees need as much starting pitching help as they can get. If Severino has more starts like that in him, New York will gladly take them.

And based on what we saw Tuesday night, he should.

Before Severino made his major league debut, he was last seen racking up a 1.91 ERA in 11 starts for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Along the way, probably the two things that garnered the most attention were his plus fastball and command.

Severino showed off both of these in his debut. Per the raw PitchF/X data at Brooks Baseball, his four-seam fastball sat at 95 miles per hour and got as high as 98. He also threw 59 of his 94 pitches for strikes and was pretty good about staying out of the middle of the strike zone, per Brooks Baseball.

Severino’s outing wasn’t quite mistake-free, mind you. He gave Alejandro De Aza and David Ortiz fastballs on the inner part of the plate to turn on, resulting in a double off the right-center field wall for De Aza and a booming home run to right field for Ortiz.

The lesson learned? As Severino told Erik Boland of Newsday after the game: “When you miss a pitch here, you pay for it.”

But rather than nitpick what Severino did wrong with those two pitches, we’re better off acknowledging how they were part of an overall process that was largely successful.

Though much has been said about Severino’s four-seam fastball, he showed that he’s also able to mix in two-seamers and cutters to give hitters different looks. He ramped up the difficulty with with his ability to locate, as Red Sox hitters were liable to see a four-seamer on the edge of the strike zone one pitch then a sinker or cutter off the edge the next offering.

Severino also showed that he could use his cutter to set up his slider, and vice versa. ESPN Stats and Information says the two pitches accounted for five of his seven strikeouts, and in general Boston hitters seemed to have no answer for either pitch.

Just ask Xander Bogaerts, who was frozen by a nasty cutter in the first inning for Severino’s first career strikeout:

If there’s a disappointing aspect of Severino’s debut, it’s that his changeup didn’t make many appearances. Christopher Crawford of Baseball Prospectus wrote that Severino’s changeup is the pitch that “makes him such an effective hurler,” but he only threw four of them Tuesday night. Given that two of the four he threw drew whiffs, however, that’s not likely to be recurring theme.

All told, Severino offered plenty to like in his debut. Jack Curry of the YES Network summed it up well:

From here, it’s on to the next one for Severino. He was likely sticking around for more starts no matter what with Pineda on the disabled list until at least September, and it doesn’t sound like workload concerns are going to get in the way.

According to Wallace Matthews of ESPN.com, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said the club managed Severino’s innings early in 2015 just in case it needed him to provide help in the majors during the stretch run.

Basically, just in case the Yankees needed him in the situation he currently finds himself in.

“I can’t say he was always in, but if everything went well and we needed him, we knew we would call him up,” Cashman said. “But only if we needed him, and only if he earned it. Well, he’s earned it. He’s somebody we’re excited about.”

The Yankees darn well should have been excited to call on Severino. And now that he’s arrived, they really have no choice but to be optimistic.

With their rotation in a spot of bother and their lead over the Toronto Blue Jays in the AL East down to 4.5 games, further good work from Severino looks more like a necessity than a luxury. They need him to give them solid outings every fifth day, lest they run the risk of missing out on a division title.

Fortunately, it looks like Severino is up to the task. He was earning buzz as one of baseball’s best pitching prospects before he set foot in the major leagues, and he showed in his debut that all the buzz was well warranted.

If he can keep it up, the Yankees’ return to form should have a happy ending.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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The Yankees were uncharacteristically quiet as the non-waiver trade deadline came and went.

What moves can they still make to bolster their club?

Bleacher Report’s Scott Miller joins Kay Adams to discuss the Yankees in the video above. 

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For so many, Alex Rodriguez is providing something close to their worst-case scenario. 

There is zero doubt many fans, media members and even those within Major League Baseball—uniformed or not—wanted A-Rod to fall flat on his face in 2015, to resemble the broken-down, washed-up player he was in 2012 and 2013. Only worse.

Ideally for those people irate at the performance-enhancing-drug scandals he has been named in, Rodriguez would have come off his yearlong suspension handed down by former commissioner Bud Selig and been a disaster for the New York Yankees. That would have appeased the masses.

Except A-Rod isn’t playing along. Instead, he’s doing all that his soon-to-be-40-year-old body is capable of to turn back the clock to his glory days. The effort continued Friday night when Rodriguez thumped a go-ahead home run in the seventh inning to push the Yankees to a 4-3 win over the Seattle Mariners at Yankee Stadium.

That home run was Rodriguez’s 19th of the season, the most he’s had in a year since 2010 when he hit 30 and drove in 125. And aside from being an all-around offensive producer for the Bombers, he has also contributed with the timeliness of his hits.

He has three home runs in his last four games and has had hits in each of those four that gave the Yankees a lead.

Entering Friday’s game, A-Rod had hit two of his homers in high-leverage situations and had a .969 OPS in 34 plate appearances. Those numbers went up Friday, again putting him front and center in the Comeback Player of the Year discussion. Sportswriter Katie Sharp noted this stat:

A-Rod is the only Yankee this season to hit 2 go-ahead homers in the 7th inning or later (also May 1 vs Red Sox)

— Katie Sharp (@ktsharp) July 18, 2015

There are logical reasons for Rodriguez’s uptick since the last time we saw him in uniform. He is healthy, first and foremost. His hips are as mobile and pain-free as they can be at this point in his career, and that is allowing him to get to balls he was unable to in 2013 when his strikeout rate was nearly 24 percent, the highest it had been since his rookie season with the Mariners in 1995.

Considering Rodriguez is one of the greatest offensive players the sport has ever seen—doped up or not—you had to figure he had not forgotten how to hit an inside fastball. His body just wasn’t letting him. It was a case of health.

Where many believed, understandably, that at his age the imposed year off due to his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal would be too difficult to come back from, it ended up being a very long and beneficial rehab process.

“I think for me the time off benefited me, and I feel good, healthy, ready to go,” Rodriguez said, via Bob Nightengale of USA Today, during spring training. “It was the first time I had a chance to rest a full year in my career, and get a chance to train, versus rehab, so feeling good.”

With health now on his side, Rodriguez is producing at an elite level, making his exclusion from the American League All-Star roster ridiculous but predictable given his past transgressions and the disdain from a certain faction of his peers.

Rodriguez came out of the All-Star break with the seventh-highest wRC+ (148) in the league, according to FanGraphs. He also had a 147 adjusted OPS, which would be his highest mark since 2008 when it was 150 and he led the league with a .573 slugging percentage. 

This current resurgence also makes it reasonable to expect Rodriguez to keep this up beyond this year.

That would be a massive boost for the Yankees, a team that had to wonder whether Rodriguez’s sliding production and negative PR was worth keeping around at $61 million over the final three years of his contract (they’re on the hook for $40 million after this season). They pretty much neglected to promote his passing of Willie Mays on the all-time home run list, as well as his 3,000th hit this year.

But they cannot deny his worth at a time when the franchise no longer dominates the AL East like it did a decade ago. Rodriguez is one of the best players on the roster, and the way he has performed makes it realistic that he can be one of the league’s best designated hitters for the duration of his contract.

Rodriguez turns 40 in 10 days. That is an age when hitters who rely on power should morph into empty shells of their past selves. A-Rod seemed headed for that fate a couple of seasons ago.

Now, however, he is defying natural decline, and we can assume he is doing it clean, as it would surprise exactly nobody if it ever came out that Rodriguez was the most tested player in the game. Maybe he backslides in 2016 and looks every bit of his age in 2017.

But as of now, one of the best players the sport has ever witnessed is showing why that moniker is real. He has not forgotten how to hit. And the Yankees need every last drop of whatever he has left for as long as he can give it to them.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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The All-Star Game is just around the corner, and some of the best players on the planet will take to Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. Two days before that, though, some of the best prospects in the world will take to that same field on July 12 in the 2015 Futures Game.

The game has produced a plethora of young talent, and recent MVPs of the Futures Game include Jose Reyes (2002), Aaron Hill (2004), Nick Castellanos (2012) and Joey Gallo (2014), per MLB.com.

Those are just the MVPs, though. Consider the players below who suited up for the USA and World teams in last year’s game, along with their Baseball America prospect rankings for this season.

A proverbial who’s who of top 100 prospects, the Futures Game is always an exciting event, and this year, the New York Yankees will send two representatives to the game: outfielder Aaron Judge and catcher Gary Sanchez.

These two will be up with the Yankees soon enough, so ahead of Sunday’s game, here are full scouting reports on two of the club’s top prospects.

Aaron Judge

Judge isn’t the best prospect in the Yankees system, but he’s a worthy No. 2. The 23-year-old outfielder has plus raw power, and his game power—though rated at 20 by FanGraphs—is progressing by the minute.

Over 236 minor league games—including Arizona Fall League games—Judge has belted 34 home runs, good for a 162-game average of 23.3. Judge’s power should continue to progress as both his body and approach continue to mature. 

That said, it’s worth noting that the Fresno State University product has seen his plate discipline challenged consistently as he moves up the ranks. Since being drafted last year, Judge is the owner of a 23.3 percent strikeout rate; it was 25 percent during his time at Double-A Trenton earlier this year.

Now, since moving up to Scranton, Judge’s strikeout rate has leveled off a little, settling in at 21 percent over a small sample of 81 plate appearances.

Judge has been successful, however, in drawing walks, and he could fall into that Three True Outcomes mold that we’ve seen more and more in young players—e.g., Joc Pederson. Over 563 plate appearances last year, Judge walked at a steady 15.2 percent rate, and he’s continued drawing walks at a 9.7 percent clip in 2015.

Whether Judge can cut back on his strikeouts remains to be seen, but his ability in the outfield is less of a question. Judge runs well enough to be a corner outfielder at the big league level. The California native figures to lose some speed as he continues to fill out, but that shouldn’t force him out of the outfield.

In his prime, Judge figures to be a 25-plus home run hitter with below-average speed. His bat is a bit more of a question mark, but he shouldn’t have a problem hitting for a .250-plus average.

Overall, Judge should make for a first-division outfielder on a competitive team.

Gary Sanchez

An oft-forgotten prospect in the Yankees system, Sanchez has the tools to be a top-tier catcher on a competitive roster.

Sanchez has a rocket for an arm, though he sometimes appears lackadaisical behind the plate and led the Eastern League in errors and passed balls last year, per Baseball America. Sanchez’s arm is the only thing keeping him behind the plate at this point, but if he’s able to keep his focus and cut down on his defensive lapses, the 22-year-old has the chance to be an above-average option behind the dish.

Sanchez’s offensive game is much more polished. Though his strikeout rate has hovered around 21 percent for his career, it’s taken a bit of a dip through 241 plate appearances in 2015, finally dropping below the 20 percent mark—19.5 percent in 2015.

Over 2,240 plate appearances, Sanchez owns a walk rate of 8.2 percent and has a decent feel for the strike zone, as evidenced by a career .273 batting average. That said, according to MLB.com, Sanchez “can lapse into an all-or-nothing approach at the plate at times, but he has enough offensive upside to profile as an everyday player if he has to move to first base.”

Sanchez’s calling card is his plus raw power. The young backstop has quick wrists and a strong lower half, and he is capable of generating above-average bat speed. To date, Sanchez has popped 83 homers in 527 games played, good for a 25 homer-per-year average.

At the big league level, Sanchez figures to be more of a 15-20 home run hitter, with the potential for 20-25 if he figures out how to limit his swings and misses.

The question for Sanchez’s future as a catcher is whether or not he’s able to figure things out behind the plate. Take the following excerpt from Baseball America‘s prospect handbook. 

“He’s still working to become more adept as a receiver and a blocker—he led the Eastern League with 17 errors and passed balls—and some scouts felt he struggled to establish a proper rapport with his staff,” Baseball America noted. “He also was benched for five games for issues away from the field.”

Sanchez needs to get his act together, but if and when he does, he has the potential to click in a big way.

All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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Just over half of the 2015 MLB season is in the books, and the Yankees sit atop a tight AL East. But despite their success this season so far, the Bombers have plenty of notable weaknesses as they work toward a 28th World Series title.

What moves can make the Yankees a legitimate championship threat?

Bleacher Report’s Scott Miller joins Stephen Nelson to identify three players the Yanks should pursue if they want to have success in October.

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When New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez launched a home run into the seats at Yankee Stadium for his 3,000th career hit in June, it seemed as though he would never get the ball back, but the dynamic changed Friday, as the Yanks negotiated a deal with the fan who caught it.

According to the Yankees’ official Twitter account, Zack Hample, who is well-known for his pursuit of souvenir baseballs, has agreed to present A-Rod with the ball Friday in exchange for a $150,000 donation to the Pitch In for Baseball charity.

Hample will receive some additional nonmonetary compensation as well, per ESPN’s Darren Rovell:

The decision to give the ball to the 39-year-old designated hitter represents a significant change of heart of Hample’s part, as he initially planned to keep it:

Hample did concede that the ball might become available if he received an offer to his liking, though, according to ESPN.com:

I think that someone like Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez, who has made half a billion dollars in his career, doesn’t really need a favor from a normal civilian and a fan like me. I don’t know right now if I’m going to sell it. I mean, depending on what the Yankees could offer, I would consider giving it back. I’m not giving it back for—I don’t plan to give it back for a chance to meet him and full autographed bats because I don’t collect bats, I collect baseballs. Just having this ball is so meaningful to me. I can’t believe that I got it.

While Hample will ultimately benefit from the exchange, the fact that a charity is involved makes it a much more meaningful and fulfilling transaction than most probably expected.

Also, the Yankees’ decision to go to bat for A-Rod is significant because it wasn’t long ago that the two sides had an extremely tenuous relationship due to his year-long suspension for the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Things have changed this season, as Rodriguez has carried himself in an ideal manner, and he has also produced on the field to the tune of a .280 batting average, 15 home runs and 45 RBI for the AL East-leading Bronx Bombers.

A-Rod’s reputation remains tarnished as far as the sport of baseball is concerned, but this gesture suggests that he is once again back in the Big Apple’s good graces. 

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

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If you’ve ever wondered what Johnny Cueto would look like in pinstripes, you’re not alone.

The New York Yankees were curious enough to send a scout to watch the Cincinnati Reds ace pitch recently, per George A. King III of the New York Post. And the scout stuck around for at least two Cueto outings, per Jon Morosi of Fox Sports:

The Yanks were also looking at veteran Reds right-hander Mike Leake, King reported. Of Leake, an unnamed scout told King, “In the National League, he could be a 3; in the AL, a 4.”

Cueto, on the other hand, is an unambiguous No. 1, a game-changing prize who would instantly elevate any rotation.

There’s a wrinkle: Cueto had his next scheduled start pushed from Tuesday to Friday after spending time on the disabled list with elbow soreness, per Hardball Talk‘s Aaron Gleeman.

But let’s assume that’s merely a precaution and focus instead on Cueto’s typically stellar 2.98 ERA and 86 strikeouts in 90.2 innings. 

And let’s further assume Cincinnati is willing to move him, a question Cueto’s agent, Bryce Dixon, addressed in early June while chatting with MLB Network Radio’s Jim Bowden.

“They’ve made no indications to Johnny that they want to trade him,” Dixon told Bowden, “but reading the tea leaves, if they fall out of contention, it seems to make sense from their end because if they ride the season out with him and don’t make the playoffs, then they’re stuck with a compensation pick. And, from where I sit, I think they can probably get more than that on the trade market.”

As for an asking price for the 29-year-old—who made the NL All-Star team and finished second in Cy Young balloting in 2014—here are King’s thoughts:

Any team talking to the Yankees would have to ask for right-hander Luis Severino and/or outfielder Aaron Judge, but it’s not likely the Yankees would part with their two top prospects for a rental.

However, the Reds have scouted the Yankees’ system, and players such as outfielders Ramon Flores and Mason Williams and pitcher Bryan Mitchell might be attractive as part of a package.

It makes sense for New York to guard its most valuable trade chips, and Cueto is a short-term rental who will become a free agent after this season.

Make no mistake, though: Adding one of the top starting pitchers in baseball would be huge for the Yankees. Maybe huge enough to hand them the American League East, which at the moment is MLB’s most muddled, up-for-grabs division.

Entering play Tuesday, New York was 38-32, one game behind the Tampa Bay Rays.

The bats have held up their end of the bargain, plating 334 runs, second-best in the big leagues.

Yankees hurlers, however, own a pedestrian 4.42 ERA, worse than 22 other teams, many of whom won’t sniff the playoffs.

Michael Pineda is in the midst of a breakout campaign, and Masahiro Tanaka has shown flashes of brilliance. But Tanaka, who got shelled Sunday, is also a ticking injury time bomb, always seemingly a twinge away from catastrophe.

Ivan Nova—another promising Yankees pitcher set to start Wednesday, according to Newsday‘s Jordan Lauterbach—is working his way back from Tommy John surgery.

And hefty lefty CC Sabathia has been mediocre at best, posting a 5.31 ERA in 83 innings of work.

Tally it all and you’ve got a starting staff in search of a spine that’ll prop it up through the remainder of the 162-game grind and, if it’s lucky, into October.

Speaking of which: New York hasn’t tasted playoff baseball since 2012, which counts as an agonizing, unacceptable drought in the Bronx.

With seasoned hitters (Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez) staving off Father Time, the Yankees need experienced arms to pitch in. They’re an aging club for the most part, with a rapidly closing window. Plus, they’re the Yankees, a franchise in perpetual win-now mode.

Will they do what it takes to land Cueto? Possibly not, given their recent run of restraint and the legitimate questions surrounding his health. 

All the same, the Reds figure to at least dangle him as they fade out in the NL Central. And the Yankees, big fish that they are, should seriously consider taking the bait.

All statistics current as of June 22 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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Fact: Alex Rodriguez gets his 3,000th career hit, becomes the 29th member of the historic club.

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

Source: New York Yankees

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NEW YORK — Four years ago, it was easy to know what to think.

It was easy to know how to feel.

Derek Jeter got to 3,000 hits in the most Derek Jeter of ways, and it wasn’t just Yankees fans who celebrated. Even now, four years later, the pitcher who gave up Jeter’s 3,000th hit can talk about how “special” that day was.

“I still have no regrets,” David Price said Friday, just a couple of hours before the 28th member of the 3,000-hit club (Jeter) was joined by the 29th member (Alex Rodriguez).

He did it like Jeter did, with a home run off a great pitcher. But he did it nothing like Jeter did, because Alex Rodriguez never does anything that way.

It’s complicated with him. It’s always complicated with him, even on a night like Friday.

He’s done that to himself, but he’s also done it to all of us. He’s left us wondering what he could have been without the drugs, the suspension and the controversy, but he’s also kept us wondering who he really is.

“I’m not touching that,” Justin Verlander said, when asked to compare the Jeter and A-Rod emotions a few hours after he gave up A-Rod’s 3,000th.

He wasn’t, but across the Tigers clubhouse, Miguel Cabrera was. Cabrera was running the bases when the game ended, and when it did, he headed not to the Tigers’ third-base dugout but instead directly to Rodriguez, whom he grabbed in a big hug.

To those who would say A-Rod isn’t worthy of such love, Cabrera said later, “They don’t know him.”

And to those who believe that everyone in the game still hates A-Rod, this was the strongest of counterpoints.

Obviously, he’s no Jeter. Not everyone was celebrating Friday night. But obviously, he’s not universally viewed as a villain, either.

“Those numbers,” Cabrera said. “Only Hall of Famers do that—3,000 hits, 600 home runs, 2,000 RBI. That’s amazing.

“That’s amazing.”

Down the hall in the Yankees interview room, A-Rod was talking about the night with his usual planned-out thoughts. He brought up one of the biggest contrasts with the Jeter 3,000 game, which was that the guy who caught Jeter’s home run couldn’t wait to return it, while the guy who caught A-Rod’s homer at first refused to even negotiate with the Yankees on a return.

“The thing I was thinking about was where’s Jeet’s guy,” Rodriguez joked. “I wasn’t so lucky.”

The contrasts will always be there, no matter what. But the contrasts always come with contradictions for A-Rod.

The numbers were steroid-aided. We know that. But we also know that plenty of guys used steroids, and none of the others came up with these numbers.

The drugs and the lawsuits turn plenty of people off, in plenty of big league clubhouses (including, often, his own). But we also know that plenty of former and current Yankees tell friends what a great teammate Alex is.

We know there are players like Cabrera, who had no problem with showing him respect in the most public of ways.

“The thing that I’ll take away is that after the last out, Miguel Cabrera gives me a hug,” Rodriguez said. “Twenty years from now, that’s what I’ll think about. … Miggy is such a class act, and he’ll arguably go down as the greatest right-handed hitter of our generation.

“That was special for me.”

A-Rod could have gone down as the greatest right-handed hitter of his generation, or the greatest hitter, period. But it’s never that simple with him.

It wasn’t simple, not even Friday, not even on what should have been one of his best days.

He hit the first pitch he saw, a 95 mph Verlander fastball, three rows deep into the right-field seats. The Yankee Stadium fans rose in anticipation, and if they didn’t cheer him the way they cheered Jeter, they at least gave him an ovation worthy of 3,000.

When A-Rod came out for a curtain call, it didn’t feel forced. ESPN Stats & Info noted A-Rod’s accomplishment:

Four years ago, Jeter came into the game against Price needing two hits for 3,000. He got them in his first two at-bats and then added three more hits in a 5-4 Yankees win over the Rays.

The whole day felt like a celebration. Four years later, it still feels special, as Price said Friday.

Four minutes after A-Rod’s 3,000th, the moment already seemed to have passed. When he came to the plate for his next at-bat, it may as well have been another day in August, for as little reaction as there was from the fans.

They don’t hate him here. That’s obvious, even if many other fans in many other places still do.

But it’s not love, not unconditional love, not Jeter-like love, not at all.

It’s complicated with him. It always is, even after all these years.

Even after 3,000 hits.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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