Earlier this year, George Steinbrenner roared his displeasure with “the third baseman.” Ever since, Alex Rodriguez has given the man that signs his checks plenty of ammo for much more scathing evaluations.

As Steinbrenner exited the Stadium after watching his team lose 122 to the Orioles, pumped up for the weekend series against Boston, he had only love for the embattled third baseman. Rodriguez was heartily booed again yesterday by the home fans.

Rodriguez went 0-for-3 and narrowly avoided being charged with his 22nd error of the season. No player has looked more uncomfortable in pinstripes as Rodriguez has this season, but the Boss was not about to cut him to pieces yesterday.

“I’m not concerned about him,” Steinbrenner said. “He’ll be OK up there [in Boston]. He’ll be doing all right.” Despite watching his team get pummeled by the Orioles, Steinbrenner was chatty and in a good mood, perhaps because they officially broke ground on the new Yankee Stadium earlier this week.

The Yankees will play five games in four days against the archrival Red Sox with the AL East crown potentially hanging in the balance.

“It’s going to be a tough series,” Steinbrenner said, his baby blues wide without the trademark aviator shades he normally wears. “We better play better than we did today.” The Yankees watched their lead over Boston in the AL East shrink to 1½ games after yesterday’s head-shaking loss and go into today’s doubleheader losers of two straight. Steinbrenner was not happy.

But he also was not a volcano of rage as he stopped to chat with reporters.

“They didn’t look good,” Steinbrenner said. “They just got the bad game out of their system, that’s all.

We’ll be ready up there.”