Hit and Run: NY Yankees Not Mad at A-Rod, Coke Mad at Yankees, Johnson's Back

  Here is an update on a story we heard yesterday, but an ex-Yankee might be mad at the team, and an update on Nick Johnson’s bad back.

• Apparently there is no bad blood between the Yankees and Alex Rodriguez over the fact that he’s been questioned about a doctor connected to HGH. Team president Randy Levine said, “Nobody in this organization is mad at Alex.”
• Detroit +Tigers+Impact+-+MLive.com%29">Phil Coke doesn’t understand why he was traded and actually seems mad about it. “When it hits you in the face, it’s a tough thing to swallow. You get angry,” Coke said.
• Nick Johnson has already missed a three games due to a stiff lower back and will probably miss a forth , but is expected back in the lineup on Monday . “He will take BP [today] and if he feels OK, play Monday,” Girardi said.

Whether the Yankees are mad at A-Rod or not, but at least publicly they are now behind him which is a good thing. He’s a Yankee and he’s going to be a Yankee for a long time. Whatever happened in the past or in the future, the best thing for both the organization and A-Rod is to hash it out behind closed doors and that seems to be what they are doing now.

As for Phil Coke, he’s a reliever and he didn’t exactly have a great season in 2009, sometimes you get traded. It’s nothing personal and he should know that. Baseball players get traded, even Alex Rodriguez got traded.

“When it hits you in the face, it’s a tough thing to swallow. You get angry,” Coke said. “At first, it’s like the grieving process with the five stages. First, you get upset and you cry blah, blah, blah. I didn’t shed any tears, but I was left wondering: What did I do? Did I make somebody mad?

“I was totally expecting being with the Yankees in spring training this year,” Coke said.”I didn’t have any reason to believe otherwise, and I wasn’t given one, either.”

He’ll get over it.

As for Nick Johnson, some people are trying to blow this off as nothing and some people are blowing it out of proportion. It’s important to keep in mind that this isn’t nothing, he’s missing four games. He wouldn’t be doing that if he were healthy. But it’s just spring training, the sky is not falling.

The Yankees do need to keep in mind that Johnson isn’t exactly the epitome of health and plan accordingly. This means that when it comes to the Marcus Thames vs. Jamie Hoffmann, they need to anticipate that whoever wins that job may get more playing time than they anticipate. If they think one of them couldn’t handle the situation the other should have a leg up on the job.

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