What has Alex Rodriguez done for his teammates thus far? Well, according to Joel Sherman, if he’s made Derek Jeter’s life more difficult, but he has certainly eased the pressure that is on Gary Sheffield and especially, the man of the hour, Jason Giambi:

No other club has two players this large ensnared in the BALCO case, though Giambi’s size is in question. If you think he came up small by asking out of the World Series Game 5 lineup last year, you should see him now.

Giambi claimed he has lost only four pounds, from 232 to 228, but the clubhouse consensus was at least 15. A four-pound loss on Giambi would be near imperceptible, but he looked as if someone stuck a pin in him and let out the air, so noticeably streamlined was he in all areas, including his face.

I’ve spoken with several baseball writers recently, and all of them agree that the BALCO affair is going to get ugly this season. If and when players are named—and I have no idea who those players would be—this will be the biggest scandal in a generation (or as one person put it, it will be the Pete Rose fiasco plus the 1984 drug trials put together). I’ve already got a knot in my stomach just thinking about it. Talk about a way to ruin a season. Oy.

In other Yankee news, Jon Lieber had to cut short a session due to a sore groin.