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MLB WORLD SERIES: PHILLIES v YANKEES

November 1, 2009

Johnny Damon

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: Game Four

New York Yankees 7
Philadelphia Phillies 4

Q. Coach (Rob) Thomson was just saying that that play that you ran to third was all instinct. When you see nobody is covering third on the overshift, what goes through your mind?
JOHNNY DAMON: Well, I think what I had to see before I could start running to third base was how Pedro caught the ball. So I knew it drug him off some. I'm just glad that when I started running, I still had some of my young legs behind me. (Laughter).
I think Joe probably remembers those Kansas City days. You know, it worked out, because I felt like being on third base, it possibly takes away a slider, a tough slider in the dirt that I may be able to score on. Alex got two fastballs. Hopefully it -- well, it did work out for us.

Q. Is that a play that you've thought of before? I guess it's never actually worked out that way for it, but have you kind of seen that develop in your mind before?
JOHNNY DAMON: Well, we've talked about it throughout the year, especially when Mark is up. They put the shift on him. We also had to deal with it when Jason Giambi was up to bat when he was with us. But in this situation I was trying to be aggressive and trying to get into scoring position, and it just worked out that way where there was a throw, the third baseman covered, and the pitcher did not.
So I kind of had to see all that stuff develop.

Q. How would you describe what Alex has done in these playoffs?
JOHNNY DAMON: Well, he's the reason why we're sitting here and we're in Philadelphia right now. I felt like without him, who knows where our road may have stopped at. He's the guy who has the RBI numbers, who's been driving us through the playoffs.
So he's been huge, playing great defense. We really enjoy the way he's playing.

Q. Could you take us through that at-bat with Lidge, nine pitches, and what you're thinking and what you're trying to do there.
JOHNNY DAMON: Well, he got ahead of me 0-2. I kept chasing that slider down, and I was able to force it to 3-2, and then I kept sitting slider, and he kept throwing the fastball.
They really don't teach you to do it that way. They normally always tell you to look fastball because if you sit slider, it would be too tough to catch up to a fastball. But I felt like his slider made me look silly on a couple pitches, so I kept sitting slider and just reacted to the fastball. So after the third 3-2 count, he threw three fastballs, and fortunately I got enough of it to get it over the shortstop and not enough of it to bounce in front of Raul there.

Q. You've been here before, one win away from winning a championship. It's been a few years, but what do you do tomorrow to get yourself emotionally in check and not get overanxious?
JOHNNY DAMON: Just the same thing, because we haven't accomplished anything yet. We've won three games, that's not what we set out to do. We would like the fourth, and when this playoff time started, we set out to win 11 games. We're at 10, and hopefully we can get No. 11 tomorrow.

Q. Joe said that you had to be 100 percent sure you were going to make it in there to even leave second base. When were you 100 percent sure you were going to make it okay?
JOHNNY DAMON: Probably when I was halfway down, because I mean, I know that I still have some decent speed left in the tank, but I was just hoping -- I knew Pedro's speed, also. I mean, if it was Chone Figgins, that might have been tough. (Laughter). I just went off of instinct, and fortunately it worked out.

Q. Can you just talk about the way the team came back, what it says about this team, and how good it feels to be in this position, one win away.
JOHNNY DAMON: Well, it feels very good, but our team has been battling all year. From June when we were barely picking up wins and not playing good ball and when Cashman came and had a talk with us down in Atlanta, we got it going. And we've been able to battle every night because we know that every team out there was gunning for us.
So therefore, we had a lot of come-from-behind wins this year. We battled in a tough environment here in Philadelphia to overcome a tough eighth inning. So that ninth inning was huge for us. But our team will continue to battle, and hopefully we can get another win soon.

End of FastScripts

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