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apujols_5 · 08-15-2006, 10:41 AM

If Ivan Rodriguez has said it once, he's said it a dozen times this year: He wants to play every day. But even he would've had a hard time arguing against this day off.
A day after Rodriguez finished up an 0-for-12 series against the White Sox with an argument, ejection and near-rush at umpire Tim Timmons, manager Jim Leyland sat his All-Star catcher for Monday's series opener against the Red Sox at Fenway Park. But the decision had less to do with the blow-up and more to do with the frustration that Leyland believes led up to it.

It was Rodriguez's first day off after playing 10 straight games since Aug. 2 at Tampa Bay, but Rodriguez has a stretch of struggles at the plate longer than that. He's batting .170 (9-for-53) over his last 13 games, dropping his season average from .315 on July 24 to .298 now, and he's shouldering an 0-for-16 skid since running into Brad Radke's stuff last Tuesday against the Twins. It's his longest hitless streak since he went 18 at-bats from May 8-14 last season.

"Pudge fought himself all weekend," Leyland said. "He was trying too hard. He wanted to do something so bad, and it worked against him."

Signs of frustration are nothing new for Pudge, who wears his emotions on his sleeve. He has been showing the usual signs after certain at-bats, tossing an occasional helmet after an out. But Sunday's outburst was something that hadn't been seen out of him since July 2005, when he earned a four-game suspension for an outburst after an ejection at Oakland.

Rodriguez readily admits he lost it on Sunday and did something he shouldn't have. He takes a little more issue with questions of whether he's pressing at the plate.

"Why," he said, "because I'm struggling? Because I went 0-for-12 in the series? It happens, man. I can be 0-for-12 and I can be 4-for-4 tomorrow. That's baseball. That's the beauty of baseball. You're OK and sometimes a pitcher's pitching you good. They're pitching me great. They pitched me great in Chicago. [White Sox manager] Ozzie Guillen knows me pretty good."

So, for that matter, does Red Sox starter Josh Beckett, who teamed with Rodriguez to form a formidable battery down the stretch and into the postseason for the 2003 World Series champion Florida Marlins. Beckett, coincidentally, took the mound for Boston on Monday night.

Ask Rodriguez about fatigue rather than pressure, however, and the answer is more diplomatic.

"I want to play every day," he said, "but Jim knows I'm human."

Besides, sitting Rodriguez is still easier than asking him to play without emotion. Leyland, for one, likes his fire in spots, as long as it doesn't become repetitive.

"Pudge is not one of them, but I've had guys that I've had to talk to about that," Leyland said. "Because what happens, in my opinion: This guy strikes out, and every time he strikes out, he goes back and smashes his bat or throws his helmet. After a while, is goes off your back because you think it's phony."

Rodriguez's anger is real. On Sunday, Pudge admitted, it went a little too far.

"I know that I made a mistake," Rodriguez said. "But also it was the course of the game. [Timmons had] been missing pitches to Miner, pitches that could be strikes that he called balls. Garcia was throwing pretty much the same pitches that Miner threw, and [Timmons] called them for strikes, a couple of bad pitches to Polanco and then to me.

"It was a little buildup, but really I didn't say anything to him in the dugout. Basically, what I told him in the dugout was to look onto the field and concentrate on your job. And he took me out of the game with no reason. When he struck me out, I wasn't even looking at him. I argued the pitch, but I didn't even look at him. He took the mask and started to walk behind me and scream at me. That wasn't right."

Leyland will always defend his player in an argument if he thinks he's right, he said on Monday, but not if he's wrong. The Tigers' plate discipline, he suggested, had something to do with the buildup, too.

"The pitch to Pudge, it was probably a ball," Leyland said. "But if it was, it was just off the plate. And we were swinging at [pitches] in the dirt and over our heads the whole weekend, to be honest with you. So how am I going to go out there and say our eyes are that good that that was a ball, when we shouldn't have been swinging at [those pitches] all weekend in the dirt and over our heads?"

More rehab for Maroth: Mike Maroth gave up four runs on seven hits in five innings of his second rehab start for Triple-A Toledo on Monday at Richmond.

The left-hander, on the disabled list since late May for surgery to remove bone chips in his left elbow, stretched out his arm to 74 pitches after tossing 60 in his previous outing for the Mud Hens last week. He gave up single runs in the second through fifth innings, including a second-inning solo homer to James Jurries.

The Tigers haven't yet announced where they'll go from here with Maroth, who could make a third rehab start later this week or conceivably return to Detroit this weekend and let Leyland use a six-man rotation.

Coming up: Jeremy Bonderman (11-5, 3.76) takes on Curt Schilling (14-5, 3.89), in the second game of this three-game set between the Tigers and Red Sox at Fenway Park. Game time is 7:05 p.m. ET