UPDATE: A-Rod out until at least Tuesday

UPDATE: Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said Friday that Alex Rodriguez,
who is currently sidelined with hip flexor tendinitis, will not return
to the starting lineup until at least Tuesday, according to Ed Price of
AOL Fanhouse.

Cashman left open the possibility that Rodriguez could miss even more
time, but said that the team does not believe he will need a stint on
the disabled list.

Rodriguez and the team insist that the injury is not related to last year’s hip surgery.

4:56 PM: When Alex Rodriguez pulled up lame last night, many worried that the real problem was a recurrence of his hip injury from last year, the thinking being that groin issues often surface as a result of compensating for hip problems.

The bad news: Yes, it is a hip issue that is the real problem. The good news: according to Girardi, the issue is “hip flexor
tendinitis,” which is different than the hip problem that resulting in Rordriguez’s hip problems last year.

A-Rod is out of the lineup, but he could pinch hit tonight and is officially listed as day-to-day.

Back during the 2015 playoffs the sorts of New York media types who love to find reasons to criticize players for petty reasons decided to criticize Yoenis Cespedes for playing golf the day of a playoff game. The Mets won the series with the Cubs during which the controversy, such as it was, occurred and it was soon dropped.

It was picked back up again in 2016 when Cespedes, while on the disabled list with a strained quad, was seen playing golf. Despite the fact that everyone involved said that golf did not contribute to his injury and that golf would have no impact on his injured quad, it was deemed “a bad look” by a columnist looking to get some mileage out of bashing Cespedes for having a hobby that probably half of all ballplayers share. They did it when he showed off his fancy cars too, by the way, even though just about every ballplayer has a fancy car or three. When you’re a superstar in New York — especially when you’re one with whom the media is not particularly close for various reasons — you’re going to catch hell for seemingly nothing.

Now there’s a new twist to the Cespedes golf saga. Yoenis himself says that his poor start — he’s hitting .195/.258/.354 and leads the league in strikeouts — is due to . . . not enough golf! From the New York Times:

He gave a possible reason for the poor start this weekend: not playing enough golf, a hobby beloved by many baseball players. And, yes, he is serious.

“In previous seasons, one of the things I did when I wasn’t going well was to play golf,” he said after a game on Friday in which he struck out four times but still drove in the go-ahead run in the 12th inning. “This year, I’m not playing golf.”

The story says Cespedes quit golf last summer because he worried that it was contributing to hamstring problems. He’s thinking about going back to it soon, as he thinks it’ll help his swing. Given that he’ll catch hell either way, he may as well do what he wants.

Follow @craigcalcaterra