A-Rod beginning to show that age is just a number

BOSTON — Alex Rodriguez has had his best back-to-back offensive days of the season for the Yankees, but the performance went for naught.

A-Rod crushed his fourth homer of the season and second in successive games into the seats above the Green Monster in left-center at Fenway Park to open the second inning on Friday night.

But in a duel of designated hitters, David Ortiz answered, hitting a two-run shot into virtually the same spot with one out in the eighth to win the game. The Red Sox defeated the Yankees, 4-2, in the first meeting of 19 this season between the two storied rivals.

Ortiz is in his final Major League season and A-Rod has only one more to go after this one.

“Things are coming along for me nicely,” A-Rod said afterward. “But if you told me 10 years ago that me and Big Papi would be hitting home runs at 40 I probably would have laughed.”

• Cut4: Red Sox fan gets bat from A-Rod

Rodriguez crept closer to becoming the fourth player in Major League history to reach the coveted 700-homer mark. He’s now nine away at 691. He’s hit 58 of those homers against the Red Sox and 28 of them at Fenway Park.

Ortiz has simply crushed the Yankees over the course of his 20-year career. The homer on Friday night was his 48th against New York and he still has an entire season left to add to that number.

“I’ve been seeing him do that since I was in [Class] A ball in Appleton, Wisc., for the Mariners,” A-Rod said. “He’s unbelievable. I don’t have anything else to say. He’s just …

continue reading in source mlb.mlb.com