A-Rod Hits 650th Career Homer in Yankees Loss

Alex Rodriguez’s most tumultuous season as a professional has been light on good moments, but the New York Yankees slugger certainly shined on Monday, even if it was in defeat.

Rodriguez reached another career milestone yesterday, belting his 650th homerun in a 5-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. His bomb off knucleballer R.A. Dickey in the fifth ining now puts him just 10 homers shy of the legendary Willie Mays for fourth place on the all-time list.

However, not everyone in the Yankee lineup got to Dickey, who allowed just one earned run in six and two thirds innings on the way to his 10th win of the season. Yankee captain Derek Jeter especially struggled, going 0-3 with a walk.

“Unfortunately for us, we couldn’t figure out the knuckleball,” Jeter said, according to ESPN.com.

New York starter Phil Hughes saw his woes continue as well, as he gave up four earned runs in just four and two thirds innings of work, falling to 4-13 on the year after being saddled with another loss.

“I left a lot of sliders over the middle of the plate,” Hughes said. “It didn’t really seem like it had the bite that it did in the last couple (of starts).”

Despite the loss, the Yankees are still hanging around in the American League playoff chase, sitting just 4.5 games back of a wild card spot and 7.5 back of the AL East lead. However, with just 31 games remaining in the regular season, there isn’t much, if any, room for error as they continue their three-game set with the Jays today.

Fortunately, they’ll have the ageless Andy Pettitte on the mound today. After enduring a rough stretch, Pettitte’s been strong recently, as a winner of his last two outings. He’s only allowed one earned run in his last 12 innings of work, so he may not need a whole lot of support from the Yankees’ offense.

Of course, New York would still love to give its veteran hurler some cushion to work with and it may be able to against J.A. Happ (3-3, 5.10 ERA), whom it roughed up for four earned runs last Tuesday.

While the Yankees’ playoff hopes are still slim, their chances of winning today are not. Look for the Yankees to rebound from last night’s loss and earn a win on the road today, while covering -1.5 runs against Toronto.