Yankees World Series Game Four 9th Inning

Johnny Damon’s two-out single in the 9th inning off of Brad Lidge was just the first big play in the inning by Damon. His next big play was stealing two bases on one pitch. With the Phillies’ defense shifted toward right field for Teixeira, Damon stole second, which was being covered by third basemen Pedro Feliz. Feliz caught the ball to the first base side of second base and Damon hopped up from his slide and dashed toward the uncovered third base bag. The Phillies and Lidge were shocked. Lidge especially. Lidge didn’t retire another Yankee out by himself. The third out of the inning was made throwing Posada out at second base trying to turn a two-run single into a double. Lidge recorded the first two outs of the inning with ease.

“It all happened so fast,” Lidge said.

Damon’s heads up baserunning will be a talked about for a while if the Yankees go on to win the World Series. So will A-Rod’s double that drove in Damon to give the Yankees the 9th inning lead. After the game Damon praised A-Rod and A-Rod returned praise for Damon for their contributions during the 9th inning.

“He’s the reason why we’re sitting here right now in Philadelphia. He’s been driving in the big runs,” Damon said referring to A-Rod.

A-Rod referred to Damon’s 9th inning at-bat as “an unbelievable, tenacious at-bat by Johnny Damon.”

Damon and Lidge battled hard in that 9th inning at-bat and Damon came out on top. With guys like Teixiera and A-Rod hitting behind Damon, all Damon needed to do was get on base to give them a chance to bat.

Lidge said, “The whole thing came down to a really good at-bat by Damon. He fouled off some real good sliders. We kind of kept going back and forth. And finally, he got a fastball away and did a really good job of serving it out to left field.”

Lidge could have never expected Damon would be standing on third base one pitch later with Teixeira not even having to take the bat off his shoulder.

“I’m just glad that when I started running, I still had some of my young legs behind me,” Damon said.

Yankees manager Joe Girardi said, “That’s instinct. You’ve got to be sure, when you’ve got Teixeira and A-Rod coming up behind him, but that was a great instinctual play by Johnny.”

Than Yankees now lead the World Series 3-1.