Yankees 7, Phillies 4
Damon's dash puts Yankees on verge of championship
A-Rod, teammates drill Phillies closer Lidge
Published: November 02, 2009, 1:27 am
Story tools:
Share this story:
PHILADELPHIA — It was a ninth inning going nowhere. Then Johnny Damon pulled off one of the most daring baserunning maneuvers in World Series history and Alex Rodriguez got the biggest hit of his life.
And now the New York Yankees are one win away from their 27th championship.
A-Rod's two-out RBI double off Philadelphia closer Brad Lidge — which came on the heels of Damon's unbelieveable steal of two bases on the same play — snapped a tie and the Yankees went on to stun the Phillies, 7-4, Sunday night.
A crowd of 46,145 in chilly Citizens Bank Park saw the Yankees take a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series. They can wrap up their 27th championship and first since 2000 in Game Five tonight (7:30 p.m., Ch. 29, Radio 1230 AM).
Game Two winner A.J. Burnett is pitching on three days rest against Phillies ace Cliff Lee, pitching on his regular turn. Lee pitched a brilliant six-hitter with 10 strikeouts in the Phillies' 6-1 victory in Game One back at Yankee Stadium.
With Damon at third and Mark Teixeira at first, A-Rod crushed Brad Lidge's 0-1 pitch down the left-field line to snap a 4-4 tie and send his teammates pouring in front of the third-base dugout in celebration.
"There's no question, I've never had a bigger hit," Rodriguez said.
Lidge got the first two men he faced in the ninth before Damon ignored the howling, towel-waving crowd to drop a single to left-center. The hit came on the ninth pitch of his at-bat, which began with Damon falling into an 0-2 hole before working the count full.
With Teixeira batting and the Phillies pulled into an extreme shift to right field, Damon took off and stole second. Third baseman Pedro Feliz was covering the bag and caught the throw cleanly but that left no one at third. Damon alertly saw no one there and took off, easily making it to the bag as neither Lidge nor catcher Carlos Ruiz covered.
"That's instinct," said manager Joe Girardi. "You'd better be sure because you've got Tex and A-Rod behind. I thought it was a great instinctual play by Johnny Damon."
"I'm just glad when I started running I still had some of my young legs behind me," Damon said. "I know I have some decent speed in the tank but I was just hoping because I knew Pedro's speed also. If it was [Los Angeles speedster] Chone Figgins, that might have been tough. I just went off instinct and fortunately it worked out."
Lidge then hit Teixeira with a pitch to bring up A-Rod, whose hit gave him 15 RBIs in the postseason to tie the franchise mark set by Bernie Williams (1996) and Scott Brosius (1998).
"He's about as relaxed as I could imagine anybody ever being," Burnett said. "It doesn't matter what the situation is when he comes up. He's confident, loose, seeing the ball and having a blast. When you're doing that, it's kind of hard to beat him."
It was a measure of retribution for A-Rod, who was plunked by Phillies starter Joe Blanton in the back in the first inning. That was the third time in two nights A-Rod got hit and both benches were warned about further inside pitches.
Jorge Posada followed A-Rod's double with a clinching two-run single to left-center. The disheartened Phillies were done at that point as Mariano Rivera easily retired them 1-2-3 in the ninth.
The place was rocking after Feliz's two-out homer in the eighth off Joba Chamberlain had pulled the Phillies even at 4-4 and Lidge got the first two outs in the ninth.
Damon's elongated at-bat turned the tide back in the Yankees' favor.
"The whole key to that whole inning was an unbelieveable, tenacious at-bat by Johnny Damon," Rodriguez said. "This guy is just a great competitor."
The Yankees were one strike away from turning over a 4-3 lead to Rivera in the ninth but Feliz turned around a full-count, 95-mph fastball and pummeled it into the left-field seats to dramatically tie the game.
It was the Phils' second two-out, two-strike home run in consecutive innings. Second baseman Chase Utley pulled a similar trick off starter CC Sabathia in the seventh, pounding a no-doubter to deep right to make it 4-3.
Sabathia, pitching on three days rest, went 6⅔ strong innings, allowing three runs on seven hits. The Yankees snapped a 2-2 tie with two runs in the fifth but Sabathia gave that one back on Utley's homer that knocked him from the game.
Utley added an RBI double in the first off Sabathia. He homered twice off the Yankees ace in Game One but is 0 for 9 against all other Yankee pitchers.
It was hard to argue with Sabathia's outing. He gutted out 107 pitches (67 strikes) and you have to believe he'd be able to put out a similar number in a potential Game Seven on Thursday in New York.
The Yankees took advantage of the A-Rod situation in the first as Posada's sacrifice fly to left put them in a quick 2-0 lead. Teixeira's groundout early in the inning scored the first run.
Utley's double got that back and the Phils tied it in the fourth on Feliz's RBI single.
Reader comments
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Comments have been disabled.
Due to a high volume of submissions that violate The News’ guidelines, commenting is no longer available on this story. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this story, click here to get information on contributing to The News’ opinion pages.