Raul Ibanez is A True Yankee

True Yankee

 I wrote a post back in mid-September I wrote a post about how the Yankees needed to stop playing Raul Ibanez and play Chris Dickerson instead and at the time it wasn't without reason as Ibanez was doing nothing at the plate. Then of course Ibanez saved the Yankee stadium the first time by homering to tie the game in the 13th against Oakland. If you recall it was pretty huge as the Yankees had been down four runs thanks to Freddy Garcia and Justin Thomas. Then the Yankees were down to the corpse that was the 2012 Boston Red Sox in the 9th and he hit a two run home run to tie the game at three before hitting the walk off single in the 12th inning. If the Yankees had lost either of these games they would have fallen into second place behind the Orioles but Raul stepped up and clobbered the Yankees to wins in both of those games.
Then last night all seemed lost as the Yankees were down by one to the Orioles with only two more outs to go and Raul Ibanez pinch hit for Alex Rodriguez and on the second pitch hit a game tying home run off Jim Johnson, who should be noted has now given up two home runs in this series after giving up three all season. But the Yankees failed to score a run and the game was over because it went into extra innings and the Orioles can't lose in extra innings just like they don't lose close games....oh wait but they did. In the 12th inning Raul Ibanez took the first pitch into the second deck on a trademark Ibanez Moonshot. The best part for that was the fact that it was off Brian Matusz who just so happens to pitch left handed and Raul hasn't hit lefties all season but right now the only way to retire Raul is if you have destroyed all the Horcruxes and clearly the Orioles missed a few (because he looks like Voldermort). I don't know if anybody has had a bigger two at bats in one game in Yankee history. I mean the Game tying and game winning home run after pinch hitting in the 9th? I think this night may have bought Raul Ibanez a new contract in 2012, maybe not from the Yankees but from somebody.