Alex Rodriguez better keep Yu Darvish’s name out of his mouth.
The ESPN/FOX baseball analyst went on a strange rant about the Chicago Cubs right-hander during the Cubs’ appearance on ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball,” and Joel Wolfe, Darvish’s agent, wasn’t going to let the former All-Star slugger bash his client.
When detailing Darvish’s injury-riddled year, Rodriguez insinuated many things, including that Darvish has control of his own rehab and that he should not be with the team, but should be somewhere else rehabbing his injury.
“It’s been a very sobering year with the debacle of the start of Yu Darvish, who’s been devastating,” Rodriguez said. “I mean, a guy to start a six-year contract with three of the worst months you could ever see. I know he threw a 10-pitch bullpen, then a 16-pitch bullpen, and then he said his arm was hurting. It’s gotten so bad around — now they won’t say this publicly — but it’s gotten so bad that they let him basically police and take control of his own rehab, which is scary, because they don’t want to create anything that he can kind of push back against.
“And when you have a guy that signs an enormous contract and he’s sitting down — and you walk in the training room, and he’s got two trainers working on him, you go into the video room and you have a guy looking at video – he should be in Arizona somewhere getting treated. But don’t get in the way of 25 players going after one mission — to win a ballgame,” Rodriguez continued later.
You can watch the full rant here.
After hearing the comments, Wolfe went ahead and eviscerated Rodriguez while speaking to The Athletic’s Patrick Mooney.
Via The Athletic:
“If this story had come from a credible journalist, we might have shown some concern,” Wolfe said. “But it came from A-Rod, so we’re paying it little attention.”
…”I think it was classless and bordered on unprofessional to take a little nugget of somewhat exaggerated information from one person that maybe he had history with and turning that into a spokesman for the entire team.”
“Joe Maddon cleared that up afterwards. (A-Rod’s) attacking a player who is injured and on the disabled list, which is difficult for any player, especially one who has a big contract and is in his first year [with a new team]. Imagine how difficult it is for Darvish. But then also attacking him for staying with the team?”
“During A-Rod’s absurd comments, the video shows that Darvish was right there on the top step in the dugout cheering on his teammates, which is what you want from somebody like that. He wasn’t hiding out in Mesa at the spring-training complex or back home like A-Rod was when he was suspended.”
Sit down, A-Rod.
