Chase Utley, who takes pride in playing each game as if it were his last, hit two historic home runs on Monday to ensure defending World Series champion Philadelphia had more games to play.
Utley smacked a three-run homer in the first inning and a solo round-tripper in the seventh to power the Phillies past the New York Yankees 8-6 on Monday and lift them to 3-2 in Major League Baseball’s best-of-seven finals series.
“It was a do-or-die game but I try to prepare the same way no matter when I’m playing,” Utley said. “You go out and play every game as hard as you can. You play every game like it’s your last.”
Utley’s five homers in the 105th World Series matched Yankee legend Reggie Jackson’s 1977 total for the most in any Series and lifted Philadelphia into a sixth game today at New York, where game seven would be tomorrow if needed.
“Obviously it’s great company. At some point, not right now, I will look back on it and see what kind of special moment it is. But right now our goal is to win two more games,” he said.
The Yankees are trying to win a 27th World Series title, the greatest run of championship success in US sport. The Yankees, whose US$201 million payroll is baseball’s highest, have not won the World Series since 2000.
Only six of 40 Series teams trailing 3-1 have ever rallied to win the crown, but no Yankees foe in that situation has even forced a seventh game.
Utley and Raul Ibanez smashed homers in the seventh to build an 8-2 edge for the Phillies, who knocked out short-rested Yankee starter A.J. Burnett early in the third inning.
“If we had pitched, we probably would have won. That’s the bottom line. A.J. struggled,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “I don’t think there was any [short rest] correlation. He just wasn’t able to get it going.”
Southpaw Andy Pettitte, New York’s game-three winner, will pitch game six on short rest if he is able, Girardi said. The Phillies will start Pedro Martinez, the former Boston pitcher and game two loser whom Yankee fans loathe.
Phillies southpaw Cliff Lee, who won the Series opener, contained baseball’s highest-scoring lineup for seven innings before faltering in the eighth, but South Korean Park Chan-ho and Ryan Madson snuffed out a Yankee rally bid.
Utley, who pounded a pair of homers to support Lee’s game-one victory, joined Kansas City’s Willie Aikens from 1980 as the only players with two multi-homer games in the same World Series since the event’s 1903 debut.
“He’s a very dangerous hitter and he puts up great numbers,” Girardi said. “You don’t see him chasing a lot of bad pitches either.”
Alex Rodriguez, heckled by “You Took Steroids” chants for a pre-season confession of doping while with Texas from 2001-2003, gave New York a 1-0 lead with a run-scoring double in the first inning.
The Phillies answered in the first as Jimmy Rollins singled, Shane Victorino took first after being struck on his right hand by a throw from Burnett, whose next offering was a fastball that Utley pounded over the right-field wall.
“Scoring runs early takes a lot of pressure off everybody,” Utley said.
Jayson Werth and Ibanez hit run-scoring singles in the third and Carlos Werth brought in another run on a ground out to give the Phillies a 6-1 edge, but New York added a run in the fifth on Johnny Damon’s run-scoring ground out.
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