Is A-Rod showing signs of breaking down?

Remember when Alex Rodriguez arrived for spring training saying he was in tiptop physical shape, with the statistics to back it up?

Having dropped 10 pounds and three percentage points of body fat over the winter, the Yankees cleanup hitter showed up in Tampa looking primed for another stellar offensive year.

"He came out of spring training feeling so good," hitting coach Kevin Long said Wednesday, "and he looked as good as I've seen him in a long time."

Yet here we are with only 35 games remaining in the Yankees' regular season and Rodriguez, 36, has had anything but a memorable season, bringing his long-term durability into question. And for an aging veteran with a lot of baseball miles on his body, that's the last thing a team wants to deal with.

Surgery to repair a torn meniscus robbed Rodriguez of six weeks this season, and now his comeback has been sidelined a few days because of a sprained left thumb.

This latest injury is of the freakish nature, having occurred when the third baseman tried to backhand a hard ground ball on Sunday in Minnesota. Bad luck, for sure. After taking grounders on the field and a few practice swings in the hitting cage Wednesday, Rodriguez said he hopes to play in "the next day or two."

But it's still not an encouraging sign that Rodriguez happened to get hurt in his first game back from the disabled list, especially after the Yankees had taken significant care to make sure they didn't rush Rodriguez back onto the field after knee surgery.

It wasn't long ago when he was one of the game's most durable players, appearing in at least 154 games every year from 2001 through 2007. But in the three completed seasons since he signed a 10-year, $275-million deal in November 2007, he's averaged 133 games. This year he's played in 81.

And even when Rodriguez has made it onto the field, he hasn't been the same slugger who feasts on pitchers' mistakes. With only 13 home runs, his run of 13 straight years with 30 or more will end this year. His .477 slugging percentage is his lowest since he became an everyday player in 1996.

Rodriguez believes the right meniscus tear that he suffered while running the bases June 19 against the Cubs sapped him of the ability to drive the ball with any authority, thus turning the guy who sits sixth on baseball's all-time home run list into, well, a singles hitter.

"He basically couldn't put a lot of weight, a lot of pressure on his back side," Long said. "When you do that, it's hard to hit, hard to drive the ball, it's hard to create enough oomph behind the ball and get enough on it to get it out of the park."

Rodriguez hasn't homered since June 11, a drought that's lasted 90 at-bats. In his first game back on Sunday Rodriguez went hitless in five at-bats, and Long said it is "too early to tell" if Rodriguez's swing post-knee surgery has regained the power normally generated by his back leg.

It speaks to the Yankees lineup's depth that they have done more than fine while their cleanup hitter has struggled through an injury-plagued, subpar season. They entered last night's game leading the majors in homers and they were second in runs scored, just one run behind the Red Sox.

Maybe when Rodriguez returns to the lineup, he'll join in on the offensive barrage, just like old times. The Yankees don't seem too concerned with that. To be sure, health and durability are the bigger, more troubling issues. Especially with six more guaranteed years left on that contract.