...until Jeter is healthy again!?John Harper certainly doesn't think so:
For the moment, they are saying they don't expect Jeter to go on the disabled list. But Joe Girardi wasn't exactly shrugging off the injury either, saying, "We're keeping our fingers crossed" that he won't be sidelined for more than a week.
If it were longer, who knows? As you know, Alex Rodriguez was once a pretty fair shortstop. For a variety of reasons, it seems highly unlikely the Yankees would move Rodriguez back to shortstop barring a season-ending injury to Jeter, yet the shocker of the night was that Girardi didn't dismiss the notion when someone asked the inevitable A-Rod question.
"We have a lot of options that we'll discuss internally," Girardi said.
"Is that one of them?" he was asked.
"It's something we'll talk about internally," he said.
So either Jeter's injury is worse than anyone was willing to admit Monday night, or Girardi didn't realize he could be making a huge mistake by allowing the idea of A-Rod at shortstop to linger even a little bit.
More likely it was the latter. He didn't sound like he was actually considering such a move, but merely looking for a diplomatic way to answer the question. Still, he should have been firmer in saying no, no, no, A-Rod wouldn't be moving to short unless Jeter's leg falls off.
After all, Jeter and A-Rod seem to be on the best of terms again, a development that can only be good for a team that has been searching for a winning formula and the right chemistry in recent Octobers.
As much as A-Rod seemed to let go of his Jeter obsession last year in telling the world they were no longer buddies, he was obviously delighted during spring training when Jeter himself seemed to let go of whatever grudge he'd been holding since the famous Esquire magazine article of 2001.
"We seem to be having a honeymoon," A-Rod joked at one point during spring training. "It's almost the way it was when we were kids."
