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Alex Rodriguez has refined his mechanics and his bat flips

You have to give Alex Rodriguez credit. Every time we think the end is getting near, he comes back to prove there's still some fuel left in his tank.

That's exactly what he's attempting to prove again after missing three weeks with a hamstring injury, and so far anyway the results are encouraging.

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In fact, on Wednesday we noted that Rodriguez was feeling especially good during his final rehab game. On that night, he launched a mammoth home run while playing for Double-A Trenton and punctuated it with a grand bat flip.

He was clearly feeling good again on Friday night too, because he launched another monstrous home run in his second game back with the Yankees, which helped lead them to a 4-1 victory. This time A-Rod went 440-feet at Tropicana Field against Rays starter Chris Archer for career home run No. 693. Though more subdued than in Trenton, that too was capped with a bat flip.

It's not as if bat flipping is new to A-Rod, but there seems to be a renewed swagger attached to his latest offering. At least that's how it appears to some of us on the outside. To A-Rod, not so much.

"That’s my version of a bat flip, yeah," Rodriguez said after the game. "At 40, you don’t have too much cool style. All that has left me. I don’t know if I ever had it, actually."

He needs to give himself more credit than that.

Of course, of more importance to the Yankees is Rodriguez's production. In that regard, it appears he's found the solution to the issues that hampered him in April.

[Elsewhere: Curtis Granderson saves Mets after Chase Utley's clutch hit]

"If you look at my last 30-35 at-bats, I’ve felt pretty good, and I’ve been driving the ball a lot better than the first 100, probably," Rodriguez said. "If you look at my first 50 or 60 at-bats, there were some mechanical things going on with my swing that I wasn’t happy about. We actually talked about not driving the ball, doubles or home runs, putting crooked numbers up. I found something, and since I found that, even with the three-week break, I just felt a lot better. Even in the Trenton at-bats, I felt pretty good down there."

That sounds even more promising for the Yankees, and also for A-Rod's prospects of maintaining a regular role. The Yankees will always find room for A-Rod when they feel he has something to offer, even if it means sacrificing defense elsewhere. For now, it seems his place will be secure, meaning the bat flips should continue on his way to his 700th career home run.

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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!