For five at-bats last night, Orioles shortstop J.J. Hardy told himself be calm, take it easy, don’t try to do too much. And he didn’t do much at all. Oh, there was a bunt single in the first inning that the Yankees let roll and it never went to the foul side of the line. But other than that, not much.
So in the 13th inning, with a runner in scoring position — a situation that had brought the Orioles 0-of-8 results, Hardy took a different approach.
“I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the pressure, maybe it’s the first time for a lot of us being here,” Hardy said of the Baltimore futility in the clutch. “The whole game, I was telling myself, ‘Don’t try to do too much’ and tried to calm myself down.”
You’ve heard where that got him.
“That wasn’t working. So that at-bat, I was telling myself to do a little bit more. I started swinging at a couple balls and I got one up in the air,” Hardy said.
So Hardy drilled a David Phelps 2-2 slider deep to left, nearly putting it out. But the ball bounced against the wall and brought in Manny Machado with the decisive run in the 2-1 victory that forced today’s decisive Game 5 showdown in The Bronx with the winners advancing against the Tigers starting tomorrow.
Hardy’s hit — which produced his first RBI in the series — was the ultimate spirit lifter for the Orioles, who had suffered a devastating defeat Wednesday night when they blew a 2-1 ninth inning lead and lost in 12 innings.
“We’ve been here quite a bit throughout the season. I don’t feel we were pressing. Obviously it was intense and we know we have to win or we’re going home . We handled ourselves pretty well, I think,” said Hardy, who admitted the feeling in the dugout was “maybe a little bit of everything — frustrated, fatigued. It was one of those. We had our backs against the wall. It was win or go home and we knew it.”
Well, the Orioles got to hang around another day because Hardy finally decided it was time to try to do a little extra.