Alex Rodriguez appeared to steal Mike Francesa’s World Series analysis verbatim

Whatever Fox is paying Alex Rodriguez to analyze the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series, Mike Francesa might deserve a cut.

After three discouraging losses to the Dodgers to open the World Series, the Yankees’ bats came to life Tuesday night as New York won 11-4, forcing a Game 5 Wednesday in New York. The Dodgers are still in a comfortable position leading the series 3-1, but as Francesa notes, a Game 5 loss could turn up the heat.

Tonight is an annoyance for Dodgers. Pressure starts if and when they leave the Bronx without the trophy.

— Mike Francesa (@MikeFrancesa) October 30, 2024

“Tonight is an annoyance for Dodgers. Pressure starts if and when they leave the Bronx without the trophy,” Francesa posted on social media immediately after the game, 11:28pm ET to be exact.

Seventeen minutes later, Alex Rodriguez was on the Fox postgame set alongside Kevin Burkhardt, David Ortiz and Derek Jeter, and had an oddly similar thought to Francesa’s.

15 minutes later…🤔 https://t.co/o3XZW7HqAz pic.twitter.com/ivQhqN5zdg

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 30, 2024

“Tonight, Kevin is an annoyance for the LA Dodgers. The pressure begins if and they get on that plane without the Commissioner’s Trophy,” Rodriguez said.

I mean, come on. He didn’t even try! Why not just credit the radio Hall-of-Famer with the quote? And if you’re not going to do that, at least try to put your own spin on it. This wasn’t some groundbreaking analysis, there were other ways of making a similar point.

For the sake of covering our bases, there are a few possibilities here. The first being A-Rod and Francesa happen to think alike — like really alike. The second possibility is maybe the longtime friends and like-minded baseball fans were texting after the game and A-Rod asked if he could use Francesa’s “annoyance” line on-air. It’s also possible that a producer fed A-Rod this line. And finally, we have our most likely scenario, which is A-Rod saw Francesa’s social media post and he took it.

Francesa’s “annoyance for the Dodgers” post occurred at 11:28. The Fox postgame show started at 11:31. A-Rod debuted his “annoyance for the LA Dodgers” quote at 11:45.

Is A-Rod using a modest quote from Francesa without attribution a big deal? Not really. But it is on-brand.

[MLB on Fox]