A-Rod Starting To Become A Need

Betcha didn't think you were going to see this old Photoshop again, did you?  Well too damn bad, A-Rod haters.  I know he's still the #1 most hated Yankee in your hearts (with Robbie Cano inexplicably making a pitch for #2), and you'd all probably love to see him retire, get suspended, or just get plain old run out of town with torches and pitchforks like the Frankenstein monster, but the plain fact of the matter is that this team needs Alex Rodriguez and they need him in the worst way.


Mark Teixiera, Travis Hafner, Kevin Youkilis, and Vernon Wells went a combined 0-28 with 12 strikeouts last night.  That's unfathomably awful.  It's a perfect game and then some if they were a whole lineup.  And then there's what they've done over the rest of this month to date:

Teix: /174/.264/.391 in 53 PA
Hafner: .114/.205/.286 in 39 PA
Youkilis: .135/.238/.216 in 42 PA
Wells: .095/.116/.095 in 43 PA

That's nothing.  That's less than nothing.  Healthy or hurt, old or young, regressing or trending upward, slumping or on fire, that's just not an acceptable offensive output from the middle of a batting order.  The Yankees are fading and fading fast despite continuing to get strong production from their starting rotation and bullpens and they are in dire need of some help.  Curtis Granderson should and will help when he gets back, but that still leaves them woefully short on useful right-handed bats.  And you all remember what side of the plate A-Rod bats from.

He isn't going to be anything near what he was, and we're all going to have to accept that.  But in the face of this latest offensive blackout, to still try and make the argument that the Yankees don't need Alex Rodriguez with a straight face is stupid.  Wells is shot, Youkilis is shot, and Teix is basically a switch-hitting Adam Dunn since coming back.  A-Rod has been working his way back in Tampa for some time now, and now it seems as though he's a more realistic shot to make it back soon after the All Star break than Derek Jeter.

From trying to figure out a way to void his contract to becoming possibly the most important player the Yankees get back this season, the drama never ends with A-Rod.  Hate on him all you want, just be smart enough to realize that this team needs him right now.  Desperately.