10/10/2012 – Raul Ibanez Single-Handedly Lifts Yanks
With the ALDS tied at a game a piece between the New York Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles, the Yanks were up against it in Game 3.
Miguel Gonzalez silenced New York’s bats and the Bombers trailed 2-1 in the ninth inning going up against the league’s best closer in Jim Johnson.
Alex Rodriguez was due up and Joe Girardi made one of the gutsiest and greatest managerial decisions of his Yankee tenure. He sent up Raul Ibanez to pinch-hit for the struggling slugger and he rewarded Girardi and the Yanks, rocketing a game-tying shot to send the game into extra innings.
Fittingly enough, it was Ibanez who stepped up in the 11th inning against lefty Brian Matusz. He turned on a first pitch fastball and hit a towering drive into the second deck in right field to win the ballgame and give the Yankees a 2-1 series advantage.
Coming on as a pinch-hitter, Ibanez put on one of the better displays of postseason hitting while helping lift the Yankees to their eventual 3-2 series win.
