ARLINGTON, Texas — Kevin Long said this kind of day for Alex Rodriguez was inevitable.

The Yankees’ hitting coach could see A-Rod’s numbers as well as anyone entering Monday’s game — 10 hits, seven of which were home runs, and a .189 average — but he said all was not what it seemed.
“Numbers-wise, you can say (A-Rod had a slow start), but if you’ve watched him play and you’ve seen his at-bats, I think you’d be hard-pressed to say he hasn’t had good at-bats,” Long said after Rodriguez went 5-for-5 with two doubles and four RBIs in the Yankees’ 11-1 victory over Texas.
It followed what probably was his worst game of the season: 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in Sunday’s 4-3 loss to the Phillies. That loss, Rodriguez said, drove him and his teammates.
“I think our lineup came out on a mission today,” Rodriguez said. “We were very upset by (Sunday’s) game. We felt we let a great pitching performance by CC Sabathia go to waste. We expect a lot out of our offense and yesterday, for us, we didn’t capitalize on a lot. I thought we came out early with a little bit of a chip on our shoulder.”
Rodriguez reached on a run-scoring infield single in the first inning but hit nothing but ropes thereafter. He doubled down the leftfield line to drive in a run in the third, smacked a single to center in the fifth, laced a two-run double up the alley in left-center in the sixth and lined a single to center in the eighth.
“It was a great day for him,” Long said. “Any time you see the ball come off at approximately the angle it came in — which is on a line — it’s a good sign. He didn’t hit the ball out of the park, but he took five great swings and got five great results.”
Rodriguez, who raised his average 70 points to .259 and has 17 RBIs in his 17 games, said he felt his best game of the season actually was May 15 against the Twins, when he drew four walks. “That means I’m seeing the ball well,” he said.
Long agreed and said Rodriguez looks much more like he did in 2007 when he won the MVP, specifically being able to move his right hip, injured last season, better through his swing.
“Because of a deficiency in his hip, he kind of got out of whack,” Long said. “There for a while last year, we’d work on certain things and he wasn’t able to take it out to the game. He’s got a real good presence about him right now. Since I’ve been here, I don’t know if it’s been this good. It’s going to be fun to watch.”
It was for his teammates.
“You saw what he did today,” said Mark Teixeira, who has taken off offensively since Rodriguez returned May 8. “This guy’s one of the greatest hitters of all time. You put him back in our lineup and it’s easy to roll a little bit more.”