{"id":6000,"date":"2009-11-02T12:10:36","date_gmt":"2009-11-02T12:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=6000"},"modified":"2010-04-02T15:33:19","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T14:33:19","slug":"yankees-late-rally-stuns-the-phillies-in-game-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=6000","title":{"rendered":"Yankees\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 late rally stuns the Phillies in Game Four"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"world-series2009\"The New York Yankees scored three ninth-inning runs to earn a stunning 7-4 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game Four of the 2009 World Series.\u00c2\u00a0 Pedro Feliz blasted the Philadelphia crowd into a frenzy in the bottom of the eighth inning when he launched a 3-2 pitch from Joba Chamberlain into the left-field seats to tie the game at 4-4.\u00c2\u00a0 The Phillies dreamed of a shutdown inning by Brad Lidge to set up a walk-off hit against the Yankees\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 legendary closer Mariano Rivera; however, the dream turned into a nightmare.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The Phillies\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 closer, perfect in converting 41 save opportunities in 2008, has endured a difficult season and it reached a nadir in the early hours of this morning.\u00c2\u00a0 Everything seemed to be going to plan when Lidge retired Hideki Matsui and Derek Jeter to begin the ninth inning, but a two-out single by Johnny Damon sent the game spiralling out of control for the home team.\u00c2\u00a0 Damon displayed some smart base-running by stealing second and then continuing on his way to the unguarded third, vacant due to the infield shift against Mark Teixeira.\u00c2\u00a0 The shift was rendered useless when Lidge hit Teixeira with a pitch and that offered Alex Rodriguez, who was plunked for the third time in two games in the first inning, the chance to drive in the go-ahead run.\u00c2\u00a0 So often the public whipping boy, A-Rod delivered the biggest hit of his life by singling home Damon and Jorge Posada extended the lead with a single that allowed Teixeira and Rodriguez home as well.\u00c2\u00a0 Rivera took the mound in the bottom of the inning and quickly retired Matt Stairs, Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino in order to complete the 7-4 victory.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

The devastating efficiency of the Yankees\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 closer was a crushing message to the Phillies.\u00c2\u00a0 They now trail 3-1 in the series, when a level 2-2 state had appeared within reach, and face an immense battle tonight in Game Five simply to keep their season alive.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile the Yankees are within touching distance of their twenty-seventh World Series win.<\/p>\n

Game Four perfectly encapsulated\u00c2\u00a0 the sheer drama of a ballgame, how the course of a contest ebbs and flows and can completely change direction with one swing of the bat, one perfectly placed pitch or one great piece of fielding.\u00c2\u00a0 The wondrous nature of baseball statistics even allows us to see this in graph form<\/a> via FanGraphs.\u00c2\u00a0 That link takes you to a\u00c2\u00a0graph showing how the odds of each team winning the game fluctuated over the nine innings, most notably with the sudden upturn in the Phillies\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 fortunes as Pedro Feliz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s four-bagger sailed into the seats.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a vivid visual representation of the surge in excitement and expectation that gripped the crowd at that moment, just as the sharp downturn that followed mirrors how their hopes plummeted soon after.<\/p>\n

If there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one bit of the graph that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite reflect the impact of the moment, as I felt it at least, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the relatively modest upturn for the Phillies caused by Chase Utley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s home run.\u00c2\u00a0 CC Sabathia had sent Rollins and Victorino back to the dugout to open the sixth inning, but the Yankees\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 lefty-specialist Damaso Marte looked ready to come into the game to face Utley, and potentially Ryan Howard.\u00c2\u00a0 Joe Girardi stayed with his starter and Utley promptly reduced the 4-2 deficit to a single run by taking him deep for the third time in two games.\u00c2\u00a0 The second baseman had also hit Sabathia for a double high off the right-centre wall in the first inning, so there was enough form to suggest that Utley was seeing the ball well out of CC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hand.\u00c2\u00a0 As he rounded the bases, the Phillies must have felt that momentum was now on their side and that they had capitalized on a mistake by the Yankees\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 skipper.<\/p>\n

Managerial decisions are there to be second guessed.\u00c2\u00a0 If Sabathia had ended the inning by making Utley pop up for the third straight at-bat, Girardi could have used Marte against Howard and Raul Ibanez in the eighth (with Jayson Werth in between).\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe that would have worked out well for the Yankees, not least as a three-up, three-down eighth would have potentially brought up the home run hero Feliz against Rivera instead of Chamberlain.\u00c2\u00a0 It nearly didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter because Joba was throwing the ball exceptionally well and frankly bullied Werth and Ibanez with his fastball\/slider combination to open the eighth.\u00c2\u00a0 The count was full on Feliz and I was expecting an all-or-nothing approach by both players: Feliz to swing himself out of his boots to level the game in one go and Chamberlain to blaze in that 96-MPH heater of his in an attempt to strike out the side. Like two gunslingers, they took ten paces and turned to fire at each other with the best shot they had.\u00c2\u00a0 Joba missed his spot, Feliz didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.\u00c2\u00a0 With the drama of that moment and the Yankee onslaught that followed, if Girardi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision not to replace Sabathia was wrong, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad he made the mistake because it set in train a thrilling finale.<\/p>\n

Umpiring calls also play a part in how a game pans out, both the good calls and the bad.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the mistakes that we all focus on and there were a few more to grumble about in this game.\u00c2\u00a0 Both sides took issue with Mike Everitt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strike zone and suggestions that he needed to go to Specsavers were backed-up by him missing a play at the plate.\u00c2\u00a0 He failed to see that neither Ryan Howard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hand, chest, nor foot made contact with the plate as he slid past Posada in the fourth inning to tie the game at 2-2.\u00c2\u00a0 Thankfully for Everitt, that phantom run didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cost the Yankees.<\/p>\n

Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not focus on a few duff umpiring calls though.\u00c2\u00a0 It was an epic game and the mistakes and moments of genius all came together to make it so.\u00c2\u00a0 The question now is whether the Phillies can pick themselves up off the floor after such a demoralizing loss.\u00c2\u00a0 The answer to that is they have no choice: there are potentially three more games left in this series and the Phillies have to win them all to retain their World Championship.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cliff Lee was held back so that he could pitch on normal rest and he will face off against A.J. Burnett in Game Five, with the Yankees knowing that one more big effort will secure this team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s place in the franchise\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s illustrious World Series-winning history.\u00c2\u00a0 First pitch is 00.57 GMT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Yankees scored three ninth-inning runs to earn a stunning 7-4 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game Four of the 2009 World Series. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553,98,99,65],"class_list":["post-6000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-world-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6000"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7247,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6000\/revisions\/7247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}