Through the first third of this season, A-rod has been money in the 9th inning, to the tune of 8 hits in 16 ABs, including 5 HR and a double, with 12 RBIs. (That's a 2.100 OPS if you're scoring at home or even, as Olberman used to say, you're alone.)

But a look at his career numbers in the 9th inning tells us we can expect a big dropoff.

To see the full numbers, hit A-rod's PI page here, scroll down to "By Inning" and then click the red text that says "9th inning."

You can see that his career performance in the 9th inning is a lackluster .253/.334/.471, and that he hit under .200 in the final frame in 1995, 1998, 2002, and 2006.

If the Yankees are to have any chance of getting back in the playoff hunt this year, they need A-rod to stay well above his career norms in the 9th inning.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 7:36 pm and is filed under Splits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.