PHILADELPHIA — Johnny Damon has always been a step ahead of the opposition, and last night that made all the difference. Now the Yankees are one step away from their 27th World Series title.
Damon put together the perfect at-bat, the perfect stolen base and then the perfect heads-up play, giving him a second stolen base on the same play.
That’s what Johnny Damon does. He is a winning ballplayer. Those are hard to come by these days.
Damon’s two-out single during a nine-pitch at-bat against Brad Lidge was the difference last night, the base hit leading to the go-ahead run and the Yankees’ stunning 7-4 victory over the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. The Yankees lead the Series, 3-1. Damon has always been a battler, and to watch him battle in that ninth inning puts his career into perspective.
Damon doesn’t throw well, his swings sometimes look awkward, and fly balls can be a bit of an adventure, but Damon is the kind of player the Yankees have to keep. He is a free agent, and the Yankees must re-sign him after the World Series.
After Damon got his single to left, that brought Mark Teixeira to the plate. The Phillies went into a Shift, and third baseman Pedro Feliz was covering second. Damon and third-base coach Rob Thomson have talked about that situation many times. If you steal second and third is uncovered, go for it. “It’s an instinct play,” Thomson said. “That was a huge play.”
Damon slid into second and then took off for third with Feliz behind him.
“That whole play I was hoping I was still the Johnny Damon of 21 years old, not a 35-year-old guy,” Damon said.
He still had his legs under him.
But here’s the key to the play: Damon wanted to take third because he knew that would take the slider away from Lidge, who would not want a run to score on a wild pitch. After Lidge hit Teixeira with a pitch, Alex Rodriguez, then next batter, had the advantage of sitting on Lidge’s fastball. If you know anything about A-Rod, it’s that he loves to sit on one pitch.
Rodriguez drove a double to left and Damon raced home with the go-ahead run to break the 4-4 tie.
On the steal, Damon knew he could get to third because Lidge never broke to cover the bag. Damon did a pop-up slide, spun and raced to third.
“In this situation, I was trying to be aggressive and trying to get into scoring position, and it just worked out that way where there was a throw, the third baseman covered and the pitcher did not,” Damon said. “So I kind of had to see all that stuff develop.
“I’m just glad that when I started running, I still had some of my young legs behind me.”
Damon called them his Kansas City legs, referring to his days with the Royals.
A-Rod said the key to the entire inning was the at-bat that Damon put together against Lidge. Again, this is where Damon used his head as well as his baseball talents. He has the reputation of being the baseball village idiot, but he is a baseball genius in his own unique way.
“A few years ago he called himself an idiot, but he was pretty smart on that play,” Derek Jeter said.
Listen to what Damon was thinking at the plate during his big at-bat.
“He got ahead of me 0-2,” Damon said of Lidge.
Lidge kept throwing fastballs. Damon kept reacting. Finally he was able to get a single to left.
Then the wheels really started turning. As a result, the Yankees are one step away.