According to Chad Jennings of the Journal News, Alex Rodriguez was diagnosed with a slight meniscus tear in his ailing right knee.
Yankees manager Joe Girardi said a decision will be made today whether A-Rod will continue to play through the pain or undergo in-season surgery, which much like fellow veteran third baseman Chipper Jones, would likely cost him a month. Either way, surgery will eventually be necessary.
Rodriguez, 35, is batting .295/.366/.485 with 13 homers and 52 RBI over 344 plate appearances this season, but hasn’t homered since June 11. Eric Chavez was his primary backup to begin the season, but is currently on the disabled list. If A-Rod opts for the surgery, Ramiro Pena and Eduardo Nunez would be in line for most of the playing time at the hot corner. In that case, we should probably expect Brian Cashman to be active at the trade deadline.
On a day where all the attention was supposed to be focused on Derek Jeter’s pursuit of 3,000 hits, now we’ll all be talking about A-Rod’s dilemma. Typical A-Rod to go ahead and get hurt just to steal the spotlight, right?