by Jorge Posada
We’d be having a day off the next day, so Joe was going to extend Mariano a bit. Mariano kept us tied going into the 11th. Joe kept checking with Mo to make sure he was okay, and Mo assured him he was. Joe checked with me as well, and I told him Mo was on, jamming both righties and lefties.
Joe and I had some communication issues between us, but that wasn’t the case when it came to handling pitchers. He and our pitching coach, Larry Rothschild, were excellent in that area. It wasn’t just about in-game pitching changes. They knew how to keep a staff fresh and ready. Joe was, and is, an exceptional manager, as well prepared and knowledgeable as anybody I’d played for. He showed that throughout my time with him, both as a player and as a manager. We had our differences, but that doesn’t take away from the job he did. How he handled that ’09 club is proof of it. I didn’t like everything he did, but the results were there.
In the 11th, Joe had no choice but to take Mo out of the game. He’d gone two and a third, and we were only in Game 2 of the series. Joe brought in Alfredo Aceves, who was essentially a rookie, though he had those ten wins in the regular season. Unfortunately, he committed one of the cardinal sins of baseball: he walked the leadoff hitter, who then scored. It looked like maybe the Angels were going to do to us what we’d done so many times ourselves—51 times in fact, to lead the major leagues—and come back from a deficit to win. Having 51 comebacks in your pocket, though, makes it a lot easier to believe you can do it. Alex led off against Brian Fuentes, who was the league leader in saves but had also blown seven. He got ahead of Alex 0-2 and then committed another cardinal sin—he left a fastball out over the middle of the plate and Alex just crushed it to right field.
David Robertson did a nice job of working around a leadoff error, and we went to the bottom of the 13th. Jerry Hairston Jr. came on to pinch-hit. He had played his first big league game in 1998, but had never played in the postseason. He got a hit. Brett Gardner bunted him over. They walked Robbie, and Melky came up and hit a ground ball to second. Maicer Izturis fielded it but fired wide of the bag, and Jerry Hairston came around to score. We swarmed him, Nick Swisher knocked him down, and then, when Jerry was being interviewed on TV, A.J. got him with the traditional shaving cream pie to welcome him to postseason baseball in the Bronx. I love those moments, and that was what I loved about that team. With contributions from everybody, the camaraderie had made the five-plus hours of that game worth every second.
We were late for a 2:00 A.M. bus to the airport, and even though things eventually calmed down, the electric buzz of pulling out a game like that, taking two at home, made the long flight to Rally Monkey Town a more restful one. To be honest, I liked the Rally Monkey. As bad as we played in Anaheim, I got a kick out of watching that thing. With the whole Hollywood/Disney thing going on, enjoying Jurassic Sock Monkey and the other variations was a way to deal with those long West Coast swings. On visits to the mound, Derek would come in sometimes saying, “Don’t look at the monkey. Don’t look at the monkey.” Real insightful baseball strategy right there.
Maybe we loved postseason baseball so much that we wanted it to last as long as possible, but the four hours and 21 minutes we spent on Game 3, eventually losing 5–4, was not a great way to spend our time. The Angels took the lead in the bottom of the seventh. Hideki Matsui walked, and Brett Gardner pinch-ran. He got thrown out stealing, with me at the plate facing Kevin Jepsen. Jepsen had a plus-fastball and a good cutter. For some reason, on a 2-1 count, he decided to go with the cutter, hoping to get the ball in on me, but I got all of it to tie the game. Unfortunately, we lost it in the 11th. It’s a game of inches. If Gardner is safe, that’s a two-run home run. Who knows how it would have played out from there, but with Mo rested and able to go more than one inning, I liked our chances. We wanted to get that runner into scoring position, and it took a good play to get him.
C.C. came up huge for us in Game 4. He’d gone to Joe and said that he was good to go on three days’ rest. In any playoff series, if there’s a pitcher going on three days’ rest, you’ll hear all the numbers saying that it doesn’t work out most of the time. C.C. had done it with Milwaukee in the regular season the year before: in one stretch, he started four times in 12 days, going 2-2 in those games. Now he wanted to do it again, and you like to see a guy put himself on the line like that. He was awesome, giving up just one run on five hits. We’d done what we needed to do—win one in Anaheim. That assured us of getting back to the Bronx, where we needed to win just one more game.
That doesn’t mean that we were okay with losing Game 5, because we weren’t. We also lost it in the toughest way. The Angels jumped out to a 4–0 lead in the first. A.J. is a very emotional guy, and he may have been too hyped up at the beginning of the game. He fell behind early and walked the leadoff man. He wanted to get ahead, but on an 0-1 pitch, Bobby Abreu singled. Still trying to work ahead, A.J. gave up first-pitch hits to the next two batters, and all of a sudden you’re down three to nothing and you’ve only thrown nine pitches. You want to be more careful, so you throw two pitches narrowly out of the zone. You’ve got to come in with a strike, the hitter knows it, and there’s another hit. Twelve pitches and four runs. That’s tough. I’m not criticizing A.J. or José Molina, who was catching. I don’t know that I would have done anything different if I’d been back there. My point is, that is how quickly things can turn on you, especially with a club as good as the Angels were.
We battled back in the seventh, but then we gave up the lead, a problem that had troubled us some in the past. Up 6–4 with nine outs to go, Dámaso Marte, who was a stud for us all year, nearly got us out of a two-on, no-out situation. Joe brought in Phil Hughes to relieve him—the right move to make—but he let it get away, and three runs came in.
A rainout pushed Game 6 back a day, so Andy, working with five days’ rest, was able to pass John Smoltz to become the all-time wins leader in postseason play. Somehow that seemed fitting—one of the old guard going out there and putting us back where we last had been six years before. The 5–2 score in Game 6 was a bit deceiving. We trailed by one early, came back to lead 3–1, and then the Angels added one in the eighth off Mo. He was his Sandman best in the ninth, though, getting them down in order and going to 3-2 before getting Gary Matthews Jr. on a swinging strike. I held on to that ball and ran out to Mariano to hand it to him, hoping that I wouldn’t fumble it in all the commotion. I didn’t want to think too far ahead, but that was the second time that postseason I’d been able to be out there with Mariano celebrating a series win. I wanted that last dance with my friend more than anything.
I’d been in touch with my dad throughout the series, doing what I usually did, calling home every day. He was still being very protective of my mom and didn’t want to leave her or expose her to the cold weather. He was happy for us and said that we still had a ways to go. He wanted me to stay aggressive. You’ve done your job well, he said; keep that up, and we’ll see what happens.
I’d had a decent series offensively. I would have liked to contribute more, but we won, and I took a lot of pride in how C.C. and I worked together. Seeing him come through for us like he had, getting the win in three out of our seven wins, was something else. I also thought that Melky Cabrera deserved a lot of credit. He, along with Nick Swisher and Robbie Cano, brought a lot of youthful energy to the club. Not to take anything away from what Alex had done, but Melky’s numbers were comparable. He hit .391 to Alex’s .429, they each had nine hits, and Melky drove in four runs to Alex’s six.
I still believe that having a balanced lineup and contributions from everybody is important. Those home runs were great, but we were still doing things the right way. I didn’t realize it until we were getting ready for the Phillies, but a writer pointed out to me that the Angels’ staff had walked us 38 times that series. That’s more than six a game. All those lessons we heard back in the minor leagues about quality at-bats, working the count, were still paying off for us. We made our share of errors but allowed no earned ru
ns, while the Angels allowed five. We got the job done with big hits, disciplined at-bats, pitchers who rose to the occasion, and solid defense.
Six years is a long time to wait, but it was worth it. I loved the intensity of being back in the World Series. I loved that we were playing the Phillies. I saw their swagger as defending champs, knew that they were on a 17-4 playoff run, and heard Jimmy Rollins predict that they were going to win it in five. I thought, Fine. Let’s see. With the exception of that public prediction, they reminded me of the Yankee teams I’d played with early on.
We knew it wasn’t going to be easy facing Cliff Lee. We knew all about him because the Yankees had pursued him in the off-season. He had a great reputation as a big-game pitcher, a guy who was supremely confident, and somebody who could back up that confidence with great performances. Cole Hamels was young but had had two very good seasons in ’07 and ’08 and had won the World Series MVP title in ’08. He was struggling a bit in ’09 and in the playoffs, but was capable of shutting anybody down with his great stuff.
In a way, this series for both clubs was about lefties. Charlie Manuel wanted to give us a different look, so instead of starting two of them back to back (Lee and Hamels), he decided to insert Pedro Martínez in between them to start Game 2. We felt good about our chances. Pedro wasn’t the same Pedro after all these years, and even if he had been, he had a losing record against us. The other part of the lefty equation was our staff having to deal with lefties Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Raúl Ibañez. We had two left-handers in our starting rotation, which worked to our advantage, but Utley was the key. He could hit left-handers well and was a more patient hitter than Howard. I felt that we could get Howard to chase, but Chase wouldn’t chase. The other guys who wouldn’t chase were Jayson Werth and Carlos Ruiz. I thought we needed to pay particular attention to Ruiz, a clutch guy who I knew wouldn’t let the big stage affect him.
Speaking of stages, seeing the new Stadium all dressed up was quite a sight. Pregame activities are sometimes tough to deal with because you want to just get out there and play. But that first game was different, especially with Tony Odierno throwing out the first pitch. Tony worked for the Yankees, was a West Point grad, and an Iraqi war vet who lost his left arm in combat. We’d honored him before, but this was a huge thrill for him, and I think he was as excited about the game as we were.
The game would feature two big lefties who were former Cleveland teammates and were both doing well so far in the postseason. Sometimes those big pitching matchups don’t live up to the hype, but in this case the scouting reports and the hype proved to be true. Lee was really tough on us. He used his Greg Maddux–like two-seamer and that funky delivery of his that made him sneaky fast. When we tried to get Utley out on sliders, he hit two of them out of the park, in the third and the sixth. Those were really the only mistakes that we made. C.C. left after seven innings and 113 pitches, trailing 2–0. The final was 6–1, but that didn’t reflect just how great C.C. pitched. He was upset with himself for getting behind hitters too much and not setting the tone for the series the way he wanted to. He pitched well enough to win, but with no run support, that wasn’t going to happen. I had one hit but struck out to end the game, and that never feels good.
What Cliff Lee did was historic. The one run he gave up was unearned, so he was the first pitcher to go nine against us in the new Stadium and not allow an earned run. He was on a postseason roll as well. In his first postseason ever, he had pitched 33 innings to that point and allowed only two runs. This was one of those “tip your cap and move on” games.
In Game 2, A.J. didn’t quite match what Cliff Lee had done, but he did do what the Phillies had done to us in Game 1. Matsui and Teixeira each hit solo home runs, I drove in an insurance run with a pinch-hit, and A.J. and Mo shut them down in our 3–1 win. There was some controversy over whether or not Ryan Howard had caught a ball Johnny Damon hit. The umpire ruled that he had. I didn’t see it that way, the rest of us didn’t see it that way, but I was the one who ran to second and got tagged out. Fortunately, that didn’t affect the outcome of the game and we avoided another potential controversy.
We didn’t know this at the time, but Matsui was late for the game because of traffic. The Japanese reporters who followed him told Derek that in Japan, whenever Godzilla was late for a game, he hit a home run. Derek said, “He can come late every day.” I agreed. The real trouble was, moving on to a National League city, there would be no designated hitter.
I was happy to see A.J. do so well. He talked about hearing Cliff Lee speak about having confidence in his stuff, and he went out there in Game 2 with that in mind. He went with one of his strengths, a quick-breaking curveball, and the Phillies hitters all commented on that. A curveball can really throw off your timing, and I stored that bit of information away in preparation for Andy’s start in Game 3.
We were going to play on Halloween at Citizens Bank Park—a scary place for pitchers. We hadn’t played there since the 2006 season, so seeing it again after that long was an eye-opener. It was comparable to the Stadium, though longer down the lines and shorter to the alleys and to straightaway center. It was also a place where it felt like the fans were right on top of you, and they had some interesting things to say.
Those dimensions came into play. Between the two teams, five balls left the yard. Jayson Werth hit a couple off Andy. The first one led off what turned out to be a three-run inning. Alex hit a two-run shot that was off a camera and, thanks to instant replay, ruled a homer. Alex was involved in a lot of things being hit that night. The Phillies hit him twice, and he responded in the best way possible with that home run.
Andy helped himself by driving in a run. Like a lot of pitchers, Andy thought he was pretty good with the bat, and that hit was pretty clutch. He came around to score later in the inning, along with Derek, and then we were up by two going into the bottom of the fifth. We traded home runs, I drove in an insurance run, and we got the road victory we wanted, 8–5.
We couldn’t feel too bad about those Werth home runs. They were his sixth and seventh of the postseason. The guy was hot, like Utley had been in Game 1, but we did a great job of executing our game plan against their first four hitters—Rollins, Shane Victorino, Utley, and Howard—in Game 3: they combined for one hit in 15 at-bats. With that lineup in that ballpark, the Phillies were a team we weren’t going to be able to shut down completely, so limiting their production at the top was a real victory. Andy improved to 3-0 in the postseason with that win.
In Game 4, the Phillies showed a little bit of their feisty nature when Joe Blanton hit Alex with a pitch in the top of the first. That was the third time in ten innings. The umpires issued warnings, and the whole unfairness of the rules came into play. They pitch inside and hit our guy three times. If we pitch inside and/or hit a guy, it’s up to the umpire to rule on intent and we could lose a pitcher and a manager. Alex was pissed and stood at home plate looking into our dugout while the Philly fans chanted, “You used steroids.” I was pissed about that, pissed about the warning, and really had to compose myself. I wanted to hit one all the way up Interstate 95 to the Bronx. In my mind I heard my dad telling me to be aggressive, but I also heard my uncle Leo telling me to keep my weight back. He was thinking that the Phillies were going to attack me soft in and then away hard. I took a strike, looked away, got a pitch away and tried not to do too much with it, and then hit a sacrifice fly to right to drive in a run.
I really wanted us to shut them down in the bottom of the first to quiet the crowd, but that damned Chase Utley doubled to drive in Victorino. He was killing C.C. and me. We got him to pop out in the third for the last out. The big guy and I were happy about that, and we were determined to keep going after him that way. We got him to pop out again in the fifth. But that lineup was like a Whac-A-Mole game. Utley was down, but Howard got a hit and scored a run. Then in the bottom of the seventh, when we were leading 4–2, Utley hit another home run. That was it for C.C., but not for the Philli
es. They tied it in the bottom of the eighth on an Ibañez home run off Joba Chamberlain.
We went into the top of the ninth against Brad Lidge, their closer. In 2008, Lidge had one of the best seasons a closer had ever had. He was 2-0 with a 1.95 ERA, appearing in 72 games and converting 41 out of 41 save opportunities. He finished fourth in the Cy Young voting and eighth in the MVP race. That’s a season. It was also a season ago, and 2009 was not nearly as good for him. It was clear that he wasn’t the same guy. He was struggling so much that he lost his closer’s job, but he had come around in the playoffs, saving four and winning one. Game 4 was his first appearance of the Series.
Even if it had been the 2008 version of Lidge out on the mound, I still think we would have gotten to him. As an individual, you sometimes see the ball better coming from certain pitchers. I felt that way about Lidge. So did other guys. From the video we saw, there wasn’t that much of a speed differential between his fastball and his slider that year. The slider was his out pitch, but you could look for it, or look for the fastball, and still adjust because the speed was about the same. Bad for him. Good for us. At least, that’s how it seemed. He got the first two outs, and then Johnny Damon, who needed to get into scoring position for Teixeira, singled. That’s when the Caveman’s baseball instincts and intelligence kicked in. The Phillies put a radical shift on that had their third baseman, Pedro Feliz, at shortstop. When Johnny took off, Feliz covered second on the steal, and it one-hopped him. Johnny bounced up and went to third, stealing two bases on one pitch.
