[新聞] Clutch A-Rod carries New York Yankees …

看板NY-Yankees作者ivanos (common sense)時間14年前 (2009/11/02 19:32)推噓6(6推 0噓 5→)

留言11則, 9人參與討論串1/1

Clutch A-Rod carries New York Yankees to brink of 27th World Series title Mike Lupica∕New York Daily News Monday, November 2nd 2009, 4:00 AM http://tinyurl.com/yay6b25 PHILADELPHIA - The night started to come to Alex Rodriguez now, Game 4 started to come to him at Citizens Bank Park, Game 4 and the World Series and this chance for him to be Mr. November for the Yankees. October had ended for him with a home run against Cole Hamels in Game 3, and Game 4 was about to come down to him against Brad Lidge, another Series hero for the Phillies one year ago. That was against the Rays. This was the Yankees. But first Johnny Damon had to steal second with two outs, Damon had to get to second and then keep going to third when he saw no one was there because of the Phillies' shift against Mark Teixeira. That is how Damon started carrying the night to A-Rod, who has been carrying the Yankees for a month. "What were you doing going to third?" Damon was asked in the Yankee clubhouse. Johnny Damon smiled and said, "Trying to keep (Lidge) from throwing a slider." He meant that he wanted fastballs for Teixeira and fastballs for A-Rod if it came to that. Damon has always played the game tough. But he has played it smart, too. The Phillies had tied the Yankees 4-4 on a Pedro Feliz home run off Joba Chamberlain in the eighth. But that was the eighth. This was the ninth. The Yankees have had a lot of ninth inning in them all year long, as much ninth inning in them as a baseball team can have. Now they had one more in them, on the first of November, trying to get within a win of winning the World Series. "We battle," Damon said. He battled Lidge through a long at-bat and then ended up on third on a play that will go into Yankee legend with any baserunning play they've ever had if they win this World Series. Lidge hit Teixeira, even though Teixeira was hitting .071 for the Series. So Game 4 had come to Alex Rodriguez now, the World Series had come back to him. Damon knew what Lidge knew, that if Lidge threw one of his nasty sliders - one of his out-pitch sliders - in the dirt, Damon was coming home with the run that would put the Yankees back up by one in Game 4. Lidge threw a fastball past Rodriguez for strike one. "But then he threw him another," Damon said. "I've never had a bigger hit," Rodriguez would say afterward. Rodriguez knew what to do with it, hit it on a line toward the left-field corner, hit the Phillies again, hit them the way he had when he hit the two-run homer off Hamels the night before, hit the Phillies in the World Series the way he had hit the Twins and the Angels. Damon scored and Teixeira went to third and Rodriguez came flying into second. After the biggest October of his life, the first great October of his life, now he really was Mr. November. He had 15 RBI now for this one postseason, tying Scott Brosius and Bernie Williams for the most in Yankee history. He has hit six home runs, and that ties Bernie for the Yankees' single-season postseason record. He saves the Yankees in Game 2 against the Twins with a bottom-of-the-ninth home run. He ties the Angels in extra innings of Game 2 in the American League Championship Series. He looks bad in the first two games of the Series but then he gets Hamels and now he gets Lidge, and now he gets the Yankees to tonight, their chance at World Series title No. 27. "(Rodriguez) is the reason we're sitting here, and we're in Philadelphia right now," Damon said. "I felt like without him, who knows where our road may have stopped at." It all starts because Damon refused to be struck out, because Damon didn't stop at second after his single. Because he stole two bases on the same play. "We always tell our runners to keep their heads up when they get to second against a shift," Yankees third base coach Rob Thomson said, then laughed and said, "But I can't take credit for what he did. It was just a great, great play." A great play that brought the night to A-Rod. They asked him about being locked in - again - Sunday night. "I made an adjustment after the first two games," he said. "I was expanding the strike zone, something I didn't do against Minnesota or Anaheim." Then he said, "When you put a good swing on it, good things will happen." And sometimes great things happen. CC Sabathia pitched into the seventh, left with a 4-3 lead. Then Feliz took Joba over the left-field wall after Joba got two fast strikeouts in the bottom of the eighth. Now hope was back at Citizens Bank Park, big and loud. They seemed sure that the Phillies were going to score and the Series was going to be even with Cliff Lee getting the ball for the Phillies tonight. But this is Alex Rodriguez's time as much as it is Sabathia's, as much as it is old times for Mo Rivera, who got another save Sunday night. Twice the Phillies hit A-Rod with two pitches Saturday night. "The first one woke me up," he said. Then Joe Blanton hit him in the ribs his first time up Sunday night and everybody got warned. Finally it was the ninth, for a team that had more ninth inning in it this year than any Yankee team you could remember. Then Damon was on the bases, seeing open field in front of him like he was a running back breaking into the secondary. He carried the night to the guy who has done the most to carry the Yankees. A-Rod took it from there. His time. -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 219.70.173.237

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