This time, it would be Eric Chavez sent up to the plate, the lightning Joe Girardi tried to trap in a bottle. It was Chavez hitting for Alex Rodriguez, a night after it had been Raul Ibanez, a night after Ibanez had out on one of the mystical power displays in October history.
Chavez against Jim Johnson, scarred from two lost battles in Games 1 and 3, the Yankees one out away from facing do-or-die, one-and-done tonight.
And on a night of high political debate, it was safe to say, after Chavez lined out to third to end the game: Eric Chavez, you are no Raul Ibanez.
And the Yankees, seemingly a lock to breeze to the ALCS, no longer are that, either. For the 11th night in the last six weeks, the Yankees and Orioles went to bed last night dead even. It is 2-2 in games after a 2-1 Orioles win. One game for everything today.
Wear a helmet.
The Orioles had cast a pall on the proceedings in the top of the 13th inning. Manny Machado legged out a double, moved to third on a ground ball and then J.J. Hardy blasted a 2-2 pitch off David Phelps that hit the left-field wall on a hop. A tense night grew instantly torturous. And the Yankees had already used Raul Ibanez as a pinch hitter.
A day after one of the most improbable, impossible playoff games you’re ever going to see there arrived a strong dollop of reality a few hours before the first pitch. Jerry Girardi, father of the Yankees manager, has been battling Alzheimer’s for years, and in fact has lived in a nursing home since shortly after his son was named the Yankees’ manager in 2007.
Joe Girardi announced that Jerry passed away Saturday, that he’d received the news on the Henry Hudson Parkway as the team bus made its way to Penn Station, bound for the train that would take them to Baltimore for Game 1 of this AL Division Series. It was a sober, somber reminder that these games can be a respire from all that ail us, but only a fleeting one.
Still, after paying tribute with a moment of silence for Jerry, and after handing the ball to old friend Willie Randolph to throw out the ceremonial first pitch, the Yankees and the Orioles embarked on a tense, taut game that was every bit the equal of the three that had come before them.
For a time it seemed like Nate McLouth, the Orioles’ left fielder, was going to try and carry his team through the night, try to buy his team an extra day of summer. First, he gave the Orioles a 1-0 lead by launching a fifth-inning home run on one of the few poor pitches that Phil Hughes tossed all night. And in the bottom of the inning he helped preserve the lead by chasing down a deep Jayson Nix fly ball, then doubling Russell Martin off first base.
The Yankees, though, evened matters in the sixth and to no one’s great surprise it was Derek Jeter who ignited the rally. Jeter, who’d bruised his foot Wednesday with a foul ball on Wednesday, laced a ball into the right-field corner and if he was hurting it was impossible to tell as he cruised into second base.
After Ichiro Suzuki sacrificed him to third Jeter scored the tying run thanks to a helping hand from jittery Orioles second baseman Ryan Flaherty, a rookie, who chose against trying a 4-6-3 double play on a slow roller by Robinson Cano and instead took the safe out at first. It was 1-1.
Both starting pitchers gave representative outings, both allowing only one run, Joe Saunders over 5 1/3 innings, Hughes over 7 2/3.
The Yankees seemed to have the Orioles’ toes to the edge of the abyss in the bottom of the eighth. Ichiro and Teixeira led off with back-to-back singles, and Cano pushed them to second and third after grounding out. But Buck Showalter summoned Darren O’Day, O’Day struck out Alex Rodriguez, and then coaxed a soft fly ball to right, ending the inning, and inspiring the 49,307 in the house to let both of them have it.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com