2009 Yankees: Two Dramatic Wins to Start ALCS

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. Having wrecked the Twins across three games, Alex Rodriguez continued his long-awaited postseason breakthrough with a huge home run in Game 2 of the ALCS against the Angels.

It was still early in the 2009 postseason, but there was no denying the fact that Alex Rodriguez had shown up for this October like a man who was born for the spotlight.

Which, of course, was in stark contrast to the way A-Rod had previously performed for the Yankees in the games that mattered most, his repeated failures on the game’s biggest stage a major reason why the Yankees had not won a playoff series since 2004, his first year with the team.

Going into the 2009 postseason, A-Rod was certainly not considered the pinstripe reincarnation of the original Mr. October, Reggie Jackson. In fact, in his last three postseason series - all Yankees divisional round losses in 2005, 2006 and 2007 - A-Rod had been the ultimate October bust.

He played in all 13 games in those three disappointing series and hit one homer, for one RBI, and his slash line was an egregious .159/.327/.250 with an OPS of .577. And as you might imagine, the media and the fan base scorched him at every turn.

There was no one who had more pressure on his shoulders than A-Rod as he entered the Minnesota series in an embarrassingly dreadful 0-for-29 slump with runners in scoring position.

For the highest-paid player in the game, who by many measures was still one of the top five most talented players in the game, it was failure of epic proportion. And it was no secret that A-Rod’s October struggles were a huge reason why Yankees fans found it difficult to connect with him, to believe he was a true Yankee.

Despite all of his great regular season numbers and his two AL MVP awards while with New York, he had zero postseason pedigree in comparison to Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada, the Core Four from the championship years who in 2009 would be chasing their fifth World Series title.

That’s why it was so exciting to see him excel in the three-game wipeout of the Twins as he went 5-for-11 with two homers and six RBI. “I knew I couldn’t change all the 0-for-4’s and 0-for-5’s and all the guys I left on base,” A-Rod said on the eve of the ALCS against the Angels. “I knew I couldn’t change any of that so I’m content right now, both on and off the field.”

Still, there was a long way to go before A-Rod could put to rest his past postseason struggles, and before Game 1 of the ALCS at chilly Yankee Stadium, Joe Girardi, perhaps trying to build A-Rod’s confidence, said, “Without Alex we are not in this position right now.”

And as the Yankees flew to Anaheim for Game 3, it’s likely that they would not have been up two games to none if not for A-Rod’s exploits.

“He’s so himself right now,” pitcher A. J. Burnett said. “He’s being himself, he’s acting himself, he’s having fun, and it’s showing. I wasn’t here in the past, but since I’ve been here, he rakes in October.”

In Game 1 on the night of Oct. 16, following first-inning singles by Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon, A-Rod delivered the first run of the night with a sacrifice fly which started the Yankees on their way to a fairly mundane 4-1 victory as CC Sabathia outdueled John Lackey.

But there was nothing mundane about Game 2, a five-hour, 10-minute marathon that was prolonged in the bottom of the 11th by A-Rod’s dramatic game-tying line-drive solo homer to right off Brian Fuentes, just minutes after Chone Figgins had given the Angels a 3-2 lead in the top half against Alfredo Aceves.

A-Rod’s shot produced perhaps the loudest roar he had ever received at Yankee Stadium, old or new, and while those same fans groaned when A-Rod flied out with the bases loaded in the 12th, they went into hysterics in the 13th when Angels’ second baseman Maicer Izturis threw away Melky Cabrera’s potential double play ground ball allowing Jerry Hairston to race home with the winning run in a 4-3 Yankees victory.

“Seems like it’s been a magical year here so far,” Jeter said. “Hopefully, we’ll have a few more good moments.”

The Izturis error obviously won the game, but the Yankee clubhouse was abuzz over A-Rod because to a man, they knew how vital it was going to be for him to come through in big moments if they hoped to win the championship.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Mark Teixeira said of the home run. “Obviously we all know Alex is a great player but the way he has come up big in the first five games is incredible.”

He wasn’t wrong. The Yankees had won all five and A-Rod drove in a run in each, tying three of them with homers in the seventh inning or later. “I know you guys are probably looking for something profound,” he said. “I mean, I’m just in a good place. I’m seeing the ball and I’m hitting it.”

“He’s been clutch,” said Mariano Rivera, a man who knew what clutch looked like. “He’s just doing what he’s supposed to do. That doesn’t surprise me from him.”

In the first game, A-Rod’s sacrifice fly was followed by a pop fly into shallow left off the bat of Hideki Matsui which dropped for an RBI single that made it 2-0, already more than Sabathia would need as he delivered eight stellar innings allowing one run on four hits and a walk before Rivera saved it with an easy ninth.

Los Angeles’ lone run came in the fourth when Vladimir Guerrero doubled and scored on a single by Kendrys Morales. The Yankees made it 3-1 in the seventh when Matsui doubled home Johnny Damon who had doubled, though A-Rod - who had walked - was thrown out at home on the play. In the eighth, more insurance when Cabrera walked, took second on a pickoff throw error by Lackey, and scored on Jeter’s single.

Game 2 saw the Yankees jump out to a 2-0 lead as Nick Swisher walked with two outs in the second and raced home on Robinson Cano’s triple, and Jeter hit a solo homer in the third. From there, Joe Saunders handcuffed the Yankees and Los Angeles tied it in the fifth against Burnett as his wild pitch allowed the second run to score.

The Angels wasted a chance to grab the lead when they left the bases loaded in the seventh as Joba Chamberlain rescued Phil Coke, and they left two more men on in the eighth as a Jeter error put Phil Hughes in trouble before Rivera quelled the threat.

The Yankees had the next two chances to win, but two-out singles by Matsui and Brett Gardner in the ninth were wasted, and in the 10th they put two men with Johnny Damon and Teixeira failing to come through.

After the teams traded runs in the 11th, the Angels left two men on base in the 12th while the Yankees left the bases loaded. Finally in the 13th, Hairston led off with a single against Ervin Santana and Gardner sacrificed him to second so Cano was intentionally walked. Cabrera grounded the first pitch between Izturis and first baseman Morales so it was going to be a tough play to turn two. Izturis tried but he threw the ball into left field and Hairston chugged home.

“As soon as I saw the ball get by the shortstop, I headed for home,” said Hairston, who had pinch hit for Freddy Guzman, a bottom roster player who earlier had pinch run for Matsui and thus became the DH.

To their credit, the Angels took that 1-2 punch in the Bronx and got back into the series with a gritty 5-4 victory in Game 3 victory Oct. 19 after they had fallen behind 3-0 on solo home runs by Jeter, A-Rod and Damon. They rallied to tie it against Pettitte on a solo homer by Howie Kendrick and a two-run shot by Guerrero, then took the lead with a run off Chamberlain when Kendrick tripled in the seventh and scored on an Izturis sac fly.

The Yankees tied it in the eighth on a Posada home run, but they could do nothing else and finally, in the 11th inning, the Angels won it. Girardi took out David Robertson after he’d retired the first two men and went with Aceves to face the red-hot Kendrick, the type of move that eventually led many to refer to Girardi as Binder Boy. This was clearly an analytics based decision and for whatever reason, the book determined Aceves was the better matchup.

“It’s just different stuff against those hitters,” Girardi said. “We have all the matchups and all the scouting reports, and we felt that it was a better matchup for us.”

It backfired when Kendrick singled, and two pitches later he raced home on a double to deep center by Jeff Mathis.

“It’s a series again,” Angels reliever Darren Oliver said. “This changes everything.”

Well, not exactly, as it turned out.

NEXT SATURDAY: 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.