In case you missed it, Alex Rodriguez had some strong accusations during Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN, saying things in the Chicago Cubs clubhouse were getting bad with Yu Darvish’s continued rehab.
Here are the comments, insinuating that players are/will lose respect for Darvish, who is apparently not doing his best to comeback from his arm injury according to Rodriguez.
Here's Alex Rodriguez making shit up about Yu Darvish and the Cubs. pic.twitter.com/3KmUyCc6Nu
— Aldo Soto (@AldoSoto21) July 30, 2018
After the game, Cubs manager Joe Maddon responded.
Maddon on A-Rod's comments during the ESPN broadcast: pic.twitter.com/w1UeDoUUgI
— Sahadev Sharma (@sahadevsharma) July 30, 2018
Darvish’s agent came out in strong support of his client and boy did he not hold back any punches in Patrick Mooney’s exclusive story in The Athletic.
Yu's agent fires back at A-Rod: "Darvish was right there on the top step in the dugout cheering on his teammates. He wasn’t hiding out in Mesa at the spring-training complex or back home like A-Rod was when he was suspended." https://t.co/qVdBVQ23Ch
— Patrick Mooney (@PJ_Mooney) July 30, 2018
Here’s more from the article.
“If this story had come from a credible journalist, we might have shown some concern,” said Joel Wolfe, Darvish’s agent and the co-managing executive of the Wasserman agency’s baseball division. “But it came from A-Rod, so we’re paying it little attention.”
“I think it was classless,” Wolfe said, “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?”
There were other comments made by Rodriguez during the broadcast that were also complete bullshit. He mentioned how Darvish should be in Arizona, getting treatment there instead of hanging around in Chicago. Apparently for Rodriguez, seeing Darvish around would be annoying.
“Matt, the problem is, and I’m pretty passionate about this,” Rodriguez said. “When you have 25 players coming to the stadium, you’re there to do one thing and that’s win a ballgame. You want all the energy, all the focus, all the analytics, all the stretching: What are we going to do today to win a ballgame?
“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.”
As Mooney’s article explains, the Cubs have a state-of-the-art clubhouse with resources and capabilities for injured players.
In 2016, Kyle Schwarber went down during the third game of the season and he rehabbed in Chicago, staying with the team for most of the year before returning for the World Series.
So again, saying things are bad in the clubhouse and Darvish is the problem because he’s around is complete bullshit by Alex Rodriguez.
