It's criminal

Another crime has been committed by the media. Call the police, ARod has been robbed.

No, it's not any of his piles of cash, expensive jewelry or even his extensive collection of Madonna Cds that has been taken, but rather the shiny ALCS MVP trophy.

Don't get me wrong, as a Yankees fan, I love C.C. Sabathia and what he has done in these playoffs, specifically in ousting the Angels. But there are great performances and then there are otherworldly accomplishments.

ARod clearly falls under the latter category with his absolutely ridiculous 1.519 OPS during the six games against the Halos. And while Sabathia certainly deserves a lot of credit for his impressive two wins and 1.12 ERA, something tells me that what ARod did during that same stretch was just a little rarer.

The comparison of pitching to hitting is always tricky. In this case, though, Sabathia should have been lucky to earn co-MVP honors. That's how good Alex The Great has been.

ARod led the Yankees to a win over the team they supposedly couldn't beat with a .429 average, .567 on base, and .952 slugging percentage. He hit three home runs, including one off Brian Fuentes that tied the game in the bottom of the 11th inning in Game 2, had what turned out to be the winning RBI in the clinching Game 6 and even tossed in a stolen base to please all you baseball dinosaurs out there.

Maybe everyone overlooked ARod's gaudy statistics after posting a 1.500 OPS during the three game sweep of the Twins as well. The guy who people assumed couldn't hit under pressure (by the way, his career numbers are now better in the playoffs than in the regular season) apparently has now raised the bar of expectations to Ruthian proportions. I guess ARod will have to start hurling gems on the mound on top of carrying his team offensively if he wants to lug around any personal postseason hardware this year.

Look, I hate being the guy that has to keep standing up for ARod. But if the so-called experts in the baseball media aren't, then I simply must.