2009 Yankees: The Old Guys Help Deliver the AL East Title

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. The Yankees clinched the division crown with a sweep of the Red Sox, the clincher coming appropriately enough with Andy Pettitte delivering a winning start and Mariano Rivera earning the save.

NEW YORK (Sept. 27, 2009) - If you could have scripted how the Yankees’ eventual clinching of the AL East would have happened, this was about as perfect a scenario as there could be.

Yankee Stadium, the second-place Red Sox in the visitors’ dugout, Andy Pettitte starting the game, Mariano Rivera saving it, and Derek Jeter contributing two hits. The only thing missing was catcher Jorge Posada - the other member of the renowned Core Four - who was out with an injury.

“It is kind of fitting, with what they have meant to this organization, for Andy to get the win and Mo to get the save,” said Joe Girardi, who was a teammate of both men for three of the Yankees’ World Series winners in 1996, 1998 and 1999.

But as they sprayed champagne for the first time in their sparkling new clubhouse following a 4-2 victory which completed a three-game sweep of Boston, the “old” guys reveling in the 11th division title since 1996 but the first since 2006, there was also a nod to some of the newer guys who helped the Yankees achieve the first of their goals for 2009.

“With all the new faces we added,” fourth-year Yankee Johnny Damon said, “it was fresh. We have guys who didn’t know what playing in New York was like, but those guys fit in great. We were able to mold it together.”

Damon was speaking about the nearly half-billion-dollar investment the franchise made in signing CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher and how they all played key roles in the Yankees winning, to date, 100 out of 156 games which returned them to AL East supremacy.

For instance in this game, Teixeira’s 38th homer provided some insurance in the eighth inning, and the day before Sabathia pitched seven brilliant one-hit shutout innings as the Yankees won 3-0.

Damon could have also been talking about some of the other veterans like him who had been around for a little while such as Hideki Matsui who delivered a clutch go-ahead two-run single in the sixth, and Alex Rodriguez who had singled and was one of the men who raced home to score on Matsui’s hit.

And there were the young players, led by Melky Cabrera whose solo homer in the third was the first step in chipping away at an early 2-0 Boston lead, and Robinson Cano who stroked his 200th hit of the year, and reliever Brian Bruney who retired all five men he faced after Pettitte exited, and lefty specialist Phil Coke who, with the score just 3-2, struck out David Ortiz to end the top of the eighth inning.

“We had a lot of kids mature, we had a lot of people step up,” Girardi said. “We had a lot of people have great years, MVP-type years, Cy Young-type years. We got a lot out of this team, but this is only step one. I think the way last year ended left a bad taste in all our mouths. There’s a lot of excitement. This has been a fun group, and they enjoy it.”

When the Red Sox arrived Friday night they were 5.5 games back with 10 to play so they knew it was only a matter of time before they were officially anointed as the AL wild-card team at a time when there was only one.

At the very least, they wanted to make the Yankees sweat a little, but in the first game Jeter led off with a single against Jon Lester and A-Rod began a huge night with an RBI single. In the third, A-Rod ripped a two-run homer to left as part of a four-run eruption, and after Boston crept within 6-3 on a homer by Ortiz off Joba Chamberlain, A-Rod answered with a seventh-inning RBI double and the Yankees went on to a 9-5 victory.

On Saturday, Sabathia delivered his finest performance in his first year as a Yankee. He retired the first 11 men he faced, gave up his only hit to Mike Lowell leading off the fifth before recovering to strike out the side, and put up two more zeroes before turning it over to Phil Hughes and Rivera to finish.

Cano broke up a scoreless battle with a solo homer off Daisuke Matsuzaka in the sixth and it stayed that way until the eighth when Damon produced two unearned runs off Billy Wagner with a single.

And then in the soggy Sunday finale, the Red Sox opened a 1-0 lead on Lowell’s bases-loaded single in the first, a liner off Pettitte’s foot, and made it 2-0 in the third when Lowell came up again with the bases loaded and a run scored when he hit into a double play. From there, Pettitte got locked in and the Red Sox managed just a single off him in his last three innings of work, during which the Yankees took the lead.

Cabrera’s home run off Paul Byrd cut the gap to 2-1, and then in the sixth, with two outs and no one on, Teixeira blooped a single to center and A-Rod grounded one through the left side to end Byrd’s day. Takashi Saito entered and immediately threw a wild pitch to move the runners to second and third, and Matsui - who had gone through some struggles earlier in the season - ripped a line drive single to right to score both for a 3-2 lead as the stadium roared with glee.

“When we need a big hit, it seems like he’s there,” Damon said of Matsui. “Being a guy you can place behind A-Rod, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a lefty or righty, he’s a great hitter and I’m happy how he’s gotten himself going.”

Teixeira’s home run insured the Yankees ninth win in the last 10 games against Boston, after they had lost the first eight in the season series.

“I can’t say enough about the team,” Pettitte said. “You go up and down the lineup, everything’s clicking right now. Hopefully we can do something special in the postseason. I think everybody’s hungry. Guys that have been here, Derek and Mo, we’re all pushing each other. We want to bring another championship to New York.”

Posada, proclaiming himself fine for the postseason, said, “We have to finish this. We have to finish what we started.”

Pettitte and Posada could speak from experience about finishing things in New York, but this was all new to Swisher. “In general, the Yankees mean winning,” Swisher said. “We felt confident coming out of spring training, we went through some struggles, we grinded through and now hopefully we’ll bring home the big trophy.”

Here’s how the rest of Weeks 24 and 25 went for the Yankees:

• Sept. 21: The Yankees continued their two-city West Coast trip in Los Angeles to play the nemesis Angels and they dropped the opener 5-2 as Kendrys Morales homered and Vlad Guerrero had an RBI double.

• Sept. 22: An outstanding game as the Yankees jumped out to a 4-0 lead as Rodriguez and Posada hit two-run homers in the third, then stretched it to 5-0 on solo shot by Matsui in the fifth, only to see LA rally to tie the game in the eighth off Hughes. However, A-Rod delivered a bases-loaded sacrifice fly in the ninth to score Brett Gardner who had singled and moved to third after a pair of walks. This triggered what became a seven-game winning streak.

• Sept. 23: In winning the series with a 3-2 victory, the Yankees secured a playoff berth, and inched closer to clinching the AL East. A.J. Burnett and five relievers kept the Angels in check, and the Yankees scored all three of their runs in the fourth off Scott Kazmir as Cano had a two-run single and Cabrera an RBI double. “There’s a lot on the line this week,” Teixeira said of the upcoming series against the Red Sox with a chance to put away the division. “And if we have to come back (to Anaheim) in the playoffs, we don’t have to answer questions about not playing well here.”

• Sept. 28: With the division clinched thanks to the sweep of Boston, the Yankees went with their B-team lineup yet still managed to extend their winning streak to six with an 8-2 victory over the Royals on the strength of a five-run seventh inning keyed by Cano’s grand slam.

• Sept. 29: The winning streak reached seven when Cano tied the game in the ninth with a sacrifice fly and then Juan Miranda walked it off moments later with an RBI infield single for a 4-3 victory over Kansas City.

• Sept. 30: The Royals avoided the sweep as Chamberlain pitched poorly in a short outing that lasted less than four innings, giving up three runs on seven hits and four walks in a 4-3 loss.

• Oct. 2: The final regular-season series started terribly as the Rays rolled to a 13-4 victory as B.J. Upton went 5-for-5, hit for the cycle, and drove in six runs while scoring three as Sabathia’s final start lasted 2.2 innings and included eight hits, five walks and nine runs allowed, five of them earned. Not a great way for him to head into the postseason.

• Oct. 3: A third straight loss as Pettitte pitched poorly, too, and Tampa Bay won 5-3. Sure, Girardi said it was nothing, but the pitching in the final week was starting to make Yankees fans squirm a bit.

• Oct. 4: The Yankees finished off their season at 103-59 with a 10-2 rout, scoring all 10 of the runs in a crazy sixth inning. They sent 13 men to the plate and had six hits, three walks, a stolen base, and the Rays made a big error that meant seven of the runs were unearned. A-Rod hit two homers in the inning, a grand slam and a three-run shot, and they were meaningful for him because they enabled him to finish the year with 30 homers and 100 RBI despite missing more than a month at the start of the season. This made 12 straight years where he’d reached those plateaus.

NEXT SATURDAY: The Twins snuck into the postseason by stealing the AL Central division title from the collapsing Tigers, winning it in the 163rd game of the year. But reality hit Minnesota hard because the reward was a matchup against the Yankees who continued their absolute ownership of the Twins with a three-game sweep.