2009 Yankees: A 40th AL Pennant Flies Above Yankee Stadium

Welcome back to the next chapter of 2009 Yankees: The Last Championship - a week-by-week remembrance of the year in which they gave us their most recent World Series title. After fumbling a chance to clinch the ALCS in Game 5, the Yankees flew back to the Bronx and behind another big-time start from Andy Pettitte they won their 40th AL pennant, and first since 2003.

NEW YORK (Oct. 25, 2009) - As they were packing their bags for the long and unhappy flight back home to New York, the Yankees knew they were still in the drivers’ seat in the AL Championship Series with their three games to two lead over the Angels.

But with a golden opportunity to close it out in Game 5 thanks to a scintillating seventh-inning explosion that catapulted the Yankees from a 4-0 deficit into a 6-4 lead, it all came apart in the bottom half of the inning. Anaheim answered with three runs and then barely held on for a dramatic 7-6 victory to keep alive its season and stir angst throughout Yankees Nation.

“They beat us, that’s it,” Derek Jeter said of the disappointing result. “They’ve got a great team over there. We knew it wouldn’t be easy. You can never sit back and relax. You’ve got to play every day like it’s Game 7.”

Of course, Jeter was always cool in the face of adversity, but that was not the case for the fan base and as soon as the Yankees blew a bases-loaded chance in the ninth inning when struggling Nick Swisher popped out to end the game, Yankees fans began having flashbacks to the last time the Yankees were in the ALCS in 2004.

You surely remember that. After steamrolling their way to a 3-0 lead, they famously had not one, not two, not three, but four chances to close it out and never did, allowing the Red Sox to pull off their historic, horrific comeback.

While Jeter had tried for five years to forget about that career low point, Johnny Damon had a polar opposite remembrance because he was on the other side of that 2004 ALCS. And what Damon could speak to in the wake of this loss in Anaheim was the fact that he knew exactly the jolt of confidence the Angels were now feeling by extending the series because he had experienced it with those Red Sox. “Nothing is set in stone until that fourth game is won,” Damon said.

That was a harsh lesson Jeter, Jorge Posada, Alex Rodriguez, Hideki Matsui, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera - the only Yankees left from that 2004 team - all learned five Octobers earlier. The hardest game to win in any series, regardless of length, is the clincher.

The Yankees had gotten to the brink of the pennant with a 10-1 blowout in Game 4, then appeared poised to cross the threshold the next night. A.J. Burnett got tagged for four first-inning runs in Game 5, but he settled down and pitched wonderfully over the next five, and after doing nothing for six innings, the offense came alive in the seventh against John Lackey.

Mark Teixeira’s three-run double and Robinson Cano’s go-ahead two-run single were the big blows and it looked like the Yankees might be flying home in champagne-soaked uniforms. Instead, Burnett, Damaso Marte and Phil Hughes coughed it up and back-to-back RBI singles by Vladimir Guerrero and Kendrys Morales gave the Angels the lead for good.

Thus, the Yankees still had difficult work to do against a worthy opponent, and as if things weren’t tense enough, that work would not commence for nearly three days because a travel day and a rainout put Game 6 on hold.

As he contemplated the situation, Joe Girardi refused to acknowledge the elephant in the room - that the Yankees cracked open the door for the Angels. Instead, he leaned into the fact that his club still had the advantage up a game with the final two, if necessary, in the Bronx.

“Yeah, any time you have a chance to close out a series and you don’t win, no matter what the score is, it’s a missed opportunity,” he said. “But I feel good about our team. We’re up three games to two, we’re in our home ballpark where we’ve played very well. I’m sure the Angels feel very good about their chances, you know, after the last game, but you win 103 games during the regular season and have a great home field record, you’re going to feel great when you come home.”

Another reason Girardi was feeling pretty good about the Yankees’ chances? Andy Pettitte.

The rainout created quite a storyline which the voracious New York media ran wild with. Pettitte was scheduled to pitch, but with the postponement, Girardi could have turned to CC Sabathia who had been brilliant in winning Games 1 and 4 with identical eight-inning, one-run performances.

Girardi stuck with Pettitte for two reasons. First, he was Andy Pettitte, among the best postseason pitchers in MLB history. And if something went awry, he had Sabathia locked and loaded for Game 7.

“Andy has pitched as many of these games as anybody has,” Girardi said of the pitcher who he himself caught in eight postseason games when they were teammates between 1996 and 1999. “He’s pitched in the World Series … big games in the World Series, playoffs, during the course of a season. We like Andy in this spot. CC has been great, but Andy will pitch tomorrow.”

To the surprise of no one, Pettitte was nails. In his 38th career postseason start - already an MLB record which he extended to 44 before he retired - the 37-year-old lefty grinded through 6.1 innings and allowed just one run on seven hits and a walk as the Yankees clinched their 40th AL pennant and first since 2003 with a 5-2 victory.

“Andy did what Andy is supposed to do. For years and years, Andy has been the guy. Today, he showed it one more time again,” said Mariano Rivera, who also did what he was supposed to, the same thing he had done for years and years, locking down Pettitte’s victory with a two-inning save.

“He’s amazing,” Jeter said of Pettitte. “You don’t get the most wins in the playoffs without coming up big in big games. What more could you ask of him? He was amazing tonight. He’s been a big-game pitcher for us for 14 years.”

One player who had not been a big-game player for the Yankees was Alex Rodriguez, but the embattled third baseman’s redemption tour continued in this series. After he tormented the Twins across three games, A-Rod did the same to the Angels as he finished the series 9-for-21 with eight walks for an on-base percentage of .567 while hitting three homers and driving in six runs. In the clincher, he reached base in all five of his plate appearances - two singles, three walks.

“I couldn’t be more excited,” A-Rod said of advancing to the World Series for the first time in his career. “I feel like a 10-year-old kid. I feared that I wouldn’t be able to contribute, so I had a lot of limitations. The whole year for me was about trusting my teammates and being one of the guys. Pretty incredible, especially with all the stuff I’ve been through this year. I just felt very happy and very blessed, and all I cared about this year was winning games.”

Pettitte blinked first when Jeff Mathis led off the third with a double and scored on a two-out single by Bobby Abreu. But in the fourth, the Yankees got to Joe Saunders for two runs as Cano walked, Nick Swisher singled and Jeter walked to load the bases with one out. Damon then lined a two-run single up the middle and after Teixeira walked to reload the bases, A-Rod drew a walk that made it 3-1.

Pettitte departed with one on and one out in the seventh, and after Joba Chamberlain got two outs, Girardi deployed Rivera in the eighth. And that’s when things got a little wobbly as the normally perfect closer gave up a leadoff single to Chone Figgins who eventually scored on a two-out single by Guerrero.

Not to worry. Rivera got the dangerous Morales to ground out, then watched as his teammates gave him and the restless sellout crowd some breathing room, pushing across two runs without the benefit of a hit as three different Angels pitchers each walked a batter, and they made two killer errors that made it 5-2.

“All day I just wanted to make sure I had a good outing and did not put it on CC,” Pettitte said. “I wanted to put it on me and just give us the best chance.”

Because he did, the Yankees would have Sabathia - who edged out A-Rod for ALCS MVP - ready to roll for Game 1 of the World Series against the Phillies.

“This is a great time,” Girardi said. “But we’re not done yet.”

NEXT SATURDAY: A.J. Burnett made up for his poor Game 5 outing against the Angels with a dominant and clutch Game 2 performance against the Phillies which enabled the Yankees to avoid falling into a dangerous 0-2 hole in the World Series.