A-ROD’S TIME TO CLEAN UP

CLEVELAND -- On the surface, and on the calendar, this is a new year, a new October.

Alex Rodriguez wants to believe. The New York Yankees want to believe. The best player in baseball cannot fail for a third consecutive October, can he?

Joe Torre, the Yankees’ manager, wants to believe. The last time we saw the Yankees in the playoffs, Torre batted Rodriguez eighth. Rodriguez did not get a hit. The Yankees scattered for the winter, first-round losers once again.

They gathered here Wednesday, all smiles, to prepare for today’s playoff opener against the Cleveland Indians. Rodriguez, on the heels of one of the most spectacular seasons in recent history, will bat fourth for the Yankees.

Torre was all smiles, happy to talk about Rodriguez’s newfound ability to relax under pressure. Yet Torre, a notorious lineup juggler, frowned and responded tersely when asked whether he would keep Rodriguez in the cleanup spot in this series no matter what.

“That’s not even a question I’m going to answer,” Torre said.

There is a subtle tension in the Yankees clubhouse, a $252-million albatross troubling their third baseman. Until baseball’s highest-paid player can lead baseball’s highest-paid team back to the World Series, the guy who hits all those home runs every summer will be reminded that zero is not an acceptable home run total in the fall.

When the Yankees traded for Rodriguez, they had played in the World Series in six of the previous eight years. They’re 0 for 3 with A-Rod, who went one for 14 against the Detroit Tigers last October and two for 15 against the Angels the previous October. He has gone 12 at-bats without a hit in the playoffs, 44 at-bats without a home run.

Doug Mientkiewicz, the Yankees’ first baseman, grew up near Rodriguez in Florida. As teenagers, they rounded up bats and balls at midnight and pitched to each other in a batting cage. As adults -- and as teammates for the first time -- Mientkiewicz sees in Rodriguez the emergence of a happier, more carefree person.

“To see him laugh at himself is refreshing,” Mientkiewicz said. “He’s been so serious, since he was 15 years old.

“I think he’s in a really comfortable place. He doesn’t feel like he has to prove anything to anyone any more.”

Rodriguez can opt out of his contract and try free agency after the season, and he does not need to succeed this October to drive up his value. That will be stratospheric anyway, after a season in which he became the first player in 51 years to lead the major leagues in home runs, runs scored and runs batted in.

He keeps exclusive company on that list: Babe Ruth did it three times, Ted Williams did it in 1942, and Mickey Mantle did it in 1956.

Victory in October would not validate his ability. Nonetheless, Mientkiewicz said, he hopes the Yankees win so Rodriguez would no longer need to endure questions about whether he might be the second Mr. May in Yankees history.

“Just so people would get off his back,” Mientkiewicz said. “It doesn’t bother him. I think it bothers everybody else, because we’ve got to answer questions about it.”

Torre did. Mientkiewicz did. Derek Jeter did. Johnny Damon did. Brian Cashman, the general manager, did.

Rodriguez did not. He answered a couple of generic questions from a TV reporter as he left the field after Wednesday’s workout, then retreated into the clubhouse. When he appeared at his locker, with about a dozen reporters waiting for him, he went to find Yankees publicist Jason Zillo. Within minutes, Zillo announced Rodriguez would not answer questions and the clubhouse would close.

This was not long after Cashman said he did not believe Rodriguez would cringe at such questions, or express frustration at having to answer them.

“He’s fought through so much adversity,” Cashman said, “I don’t think anybody’s question is going to bother him.”

The Yankees say that Rodriguez is not haunted by the ghosts of Octobers past, that he has cleared his head and stopped worrying about how other people perceive him. In the clubhouse, Damon said, he calls out players for not hustling and points out any flaws he might have detected in a teammate’s swing.

“He’s taken on a bigger role, and it’s stuff that a lot of people don’t realize,” Damon said. “Everybody sees he’s a great player. But he’s brought along a lot of the young guys on this team. He gets no credit for that. He’s just a great teammate.”

Rodriguez dropped a pop fly on opening day at Yankee Stadium, his first game after last October’s flop. Boos rang down upon him. Yet he caught Jeter laughing, and he laughed too, and his teammates delighted in the smile.

“He could have gone completely mental right out of the chute,” Mientkiewicz said.

This is October, though, a greater challenge in handling pressure.

“My feeling is, if Alex goes 0 for 4 in the first game, then he’s just going to let it go and go on to the second game,” Torre said. “That’s been the difference I’ve seen in Alex this year.”

If he goes 0 for 4 and the Yankees win, a crisis might be averted. If the Yankees get back to the World Series, Rodriguez might be absolved of his past October sins.

“If he goes four for nine and we lose, is everybody happy?” Mientkiewicz said. “No one remembers what you hit when you win.”

bill.shaikin@latimes.com