AJ the Yankee (Yanks 3, Phillies 1. World Series Tied 1-1)

AJ Burnett became a Yankee today.

What a wonderful performance. What a spectacular night in Yankee land. What a game what a team these Yankees are.

The Champs made their statement in game one. The Yankees were shut down by Cliff Lee, and Sabathia, our ace, was defeated. The bullpen was battered. The final score was lopsided. And the Yankees found themselves immediately down 0-1 against a Phillies team whose players had been telling anyone who would listen how easily they would defeat the Yankees. "6 games if we're nice", Rollins had said. And so the Yankees entered game 2 in a hole, with AJ the headcase taking the mound against perhaps the Yankees' greatest nemesis of the 21st century so far, Pedro Martinez.

But AJ delivered. We'd been worrying about him. For every 3 or 4 innings of brilliance, he kept having that one disastrous inning where everything would seem to fall apart. And any fan who had been watching the Yankees all year knew that it was all in his head. All of it.

And yet, there has always been something about AJ that gives you confidence. Maybe it's his quiet, thoughtful demeanor in the locker room. Or the fun he has with his teammates, throwing pies and running kangaroo courts, and the like. Maybe it's the tattoos, or that fighter's spirit we see in him. The fearless badass we know is there, ready to go out and kick some ass on baseball's biggest stage. Here's what I said about AJ a month ago after one of his mystifying starts, this one against the lowly Orioles:

Games like this make fans wonder about the postseason. CC is rolling right now, and Pettitte is a pretty reliable postseason guy. Lemme tell you, though...it doesn't matter how good our starters are. If someone gets rocked more than once in a postseason series the Yankees can kiss the World Series and the championship goodbye. Getting bombed like AJ got bombed today means no ring. Period.
Here's my feeling. Some guys step up in the postseason and win championships. Others implode. There's no way to tell for sure to which group Mr. Burnett belongs. But if I had to guess, I'd say AJ belongs to the former group. In other words, I think his mental makeup is suited towards postseason pressure and big games.
I think he'll come through when it matters most. Just my opinion, and I'm going to stick by it. Remember I said it!

And Burnett was absolutely electrifying. By the end the fans were jumping up and down and hugging each other after every out, even in the 6th and 7th innings. I was telling my girlfriend about it and it just brought tears to my eyes thinking about how he came through. He fooled the Phillies time and time again, with hard breaking balls and monster fastballs and everything in between. He was the AJ we always knew he could be, and he emerged just when we needed him most. In fact, by the end John Sterling said that, quite simply, it was AJ's best pitched game of the season. You know, I just watched that video three times in a row, and it gets better with each viewing. He just got so relaxed by the end, like it got easy for him. What a pitcher. What a Yankee.

So on one side we had AJ Burnett, overcoming his demons and officially earning his pinstripes, in a performance that will go down as one of the most memorable, most inspiring, most emotional performances of the Yankees' storied history.

And on the other side we had Pedro the villain. And boy does he love that role. For the first few innings he silenced the Yankee bats while the Phillies jumped out to an early and wholly undeserved lead, thanks to a bloop double and an error on A-Rod. It was 12 innings in a row of total defeat for the Yankee lineup, now at the hands of their most monstrous foe.

But suddenly, with one glorious swing of the bat, Mark Teixeira brought us back to Yankeeland. Here's the Tex message.

Matsui followed. Matsui's home run took the lead for the Yankees. It was a brilliant flick, in which he bend forwards and stuck out his bat almost along the dirt to lift the home run over the right field wall.

Here's Ducquette on the Yankees' home runs off of Pedro Martinez. Taken together the home runs were just tremendous. Historic. How many adjectives are there? I don't know. But each home run deserves it's own post, and that's what they're going to get.

The game unfolded as AJ, with momentum on his side and the city of New York behind him, mowed down the Phillies with flair and drama that captured the imagination of all who witnessed it.

And when he was done, Girardi gave the Phillies nothing, not even one shot at our bullpen. He brought Mariano in for the final 6 outs. A lot has been said about Girardi's managerial decisions, like sitting Swisher and starting Molina, and bringing in Mo early. And they all paid off in Yankee glory last night.

Let's see the final out one more time. There's just something about Mariano's quiet walk toward the plate after the last out, that inexorable stroll that just says, "Yes, we won this game, and let's shake hands. But there's more work to be done. So let's go home, get some rest, come back tomorrow and continue what we've started today. The journey isn't over. It's just beginning."

Yes it is. It's just the beginning. And for A.J. Burnett, it's his beginning as a Yankee. Welcome to New York.