Mark Teixeira earned his pinstripes today.
In the bottom of the 11th Tex hit the ball harder than any he has hit since he came to the Yankees this year. He hit it so hard that some people said it was the hardest hit ball they'd seen in recent memory. It was a missile line drive that cleared the wall in left, and gave the Yankees a thrilling, gratifying victory to move two in front of the Twins in the ALDS.
What an electrifying blast. It has been commented upon that many of the Yankee home runs this season have been to right field, and that's true. But Mark Teixeira's screaming liner leapt off his bat and rocketed into the left field seats in a way that we haven't seen him do before. Well, he did it.
With a walk-off home run to end a huge playoff game, and with not one, but two huge defensive plays in extra innings to stifle the Twins with the bases loaded and nobody out, Teixeira officially earned his pinstripes today. This man is a Yankee, though and through.
I have to say, though, that A-Rod also came through. Remember, the Yankees were down 3-1 in the bottom of the ninth with Joe Nathan coming on to close it out. Nathan was second in the American League in saves, with over 40. But Tex got a hit and then A-Rod launched a titanic blast that soared into the bullpen in right and sent the New Yankee Stadium into total bedlam. A-Rod had also tied the game by driving in Jeter in the bottom of the 6th (until that time Jeter had been the only Yankee able to get to Blackburn), after Blackburn had been mowing down the Yankee lineup and seemed ready to steal game 2 in the Bronx with his flummoxing array of off-speed stuff and apparent randomization of his pitch selection. So for the second game in a row, he has shown that he is breaking through the clutchless (and clueless) streak that had plagued him through so many Octobers with the Yankees.
Now I'd probably be calling A-Rod a true pinstriped Yankee right now if it weren't for all those years of choking. A-Rod won't earn those pinstripes until he atones on a much larger stage, in a big one in the ALCS or even the World Series. That's when we'll be able to move on from the 5 years of failures to get the job done when it matters most.
There were other stories from this game. Tichida's blown call. Gardner's dominance on the basepaths. Yankee defense coming through in extras with the bases loaded and nobody out. What a game.
In the end, this was A-Rod's and Tex's night to shine. If you're going to win a World Series, you'll need starting pitching and a good bullpen (the latter didn't exactly hold up today, but that's another story). But somewhere along the line you also need the middle of your lineup to come through in a big way, and that's just what happened tonight.
It was a tremendous Yankee victory, glorious for so many reasons, and in so many ways, the most important of which was A-Rod's resurgence and Tex's emergence (oh yes, more video!) as a true Yankee.
Full recap here with the cheezy music and nasal-voiced announcer...but at least it's a nice summary, (not as good as mine, though).
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