MAYBE THE PHILLIES should rethink that hard-and-inside approach with A-Rod.
Alex Rodriguez cranked a game-winning, two-out, RBI double in Game 4 of the World Series last night after being hit by a pitch for the third time in two games.
That shot, off of Phillies closer Brad Lidge, broke a 4-4 tie and began a spurt of scoring that meant a 7-4 win and a 3-1 Yankees lead in the Series.
Phillies starter Joe Blanton had continued what Cole Hamels began in the second inning of Game 3, when Hamels hit Rodriguez.
On Saturday, A-Rod responded with a two-run homer in his next at-bat, sparking a Yankees' comeback and spelling Hamels' quick decline.
Chad Durbin also hit Rodriguez in Game 3.
So, in the first inning last night, when Blanton nailed him with a runner on third and one out, tensions were high. Both benches were warned.
Rodriguez was angry, again.
He got even. Again.
At first, he declined to comment on being hit. Asked if he was physically sound after absorbing three fastballs, he said his thigh ached a little bit from Durbin's pitch.
But that wasn't the one that turned him around.
"The one time I got hit woke me up a little bit," Rodriguez said of the shot from Hamels. "Like, 'Hey, this is the World Series, let's get it going a little bit.' So it worked out."
Better late than never, it seems.
Rodriguez had been hitless with six strikeouts to that point.
He was hit again, in the seventh inning, by reliever Chad Durbin. That one left a bruise on his thigh that brought him to Citizens Bank Park yesterday more focused than ever.
Hard to believe the Phillies wanted to refocus Rodriguez, perhaps the most dangerous hitter in the most dangerous lineup in baseball.
A-Rod said that, even before Hamels hit him, he planned on shrinking his strike zone to the picky parameters that made him a .438 hitter with five homers and 12 RBI in the nine playoff games that won the Yankees the pennant.
That approach wasn't exactly working. Neither was his refocus on revenge.
Last night, after he'd been hit, he flew out twice and fanned once before the ninth.
He made sure to note that he wouldn't have been in position for glory last night if not for Johnny Damon's nine-pitch battle with Lidge, who had blown through pinch-hitter Hideki Matsui and pesky Derek Jeter.
"The whole key to that inning was an unbelievably tenacious at-bat by Johnny Damon," Rodriguez said.
Right back 'atcha, big guy: "He's the reason we're sitting in Philadelphia right now," Damon said. "Without him, who knows where our road may have stopped?"
Really, without Damon and that single, maybe the Phillies score in the bottom half of the inning, and win the game, and even the Series.
Damon further irritated Lidge by stealing second on the first pitch . . . and third, too, since the Phillies had shifted third baseman Pedro Feliz toward second, where he caught the throw trying to get Damon, and Lidge didn't cover third base.
After such a defensive at-bat, "I was trying to be aggressive," Damon said.
So was A-Rod. Lidge fired a fastball past him, then, guarding against a slider, Lidge's better pitch, A-Rod jumped on a second fastball.
"I have never had a bigger hit," he said.
He never has been hit so much, either. Or had it affect him so markedly.
A note: Just before A-Rod's big hit last night, Lidge hit slugger Mark Teixeira.
Teixeira is 1-for-10 in the Series.
For now.
