Joe Girardi did not move Alex Rodriguez out of the No. 3 spot in the batting order Wednesday, but he never said he would not pinch-hit for him.
With the Yankees down to their final two outs and with a dominating right-handed closer on the mound, Girardi made his boldest decision of the season — if not his managerial career — sending the left-handed Raul Ibanez up in place of the slumping Rodriguez. Once again, the 40-year-old Ibanez delivered in almost magical fashion.
Ibanez hit a game-tying home run off Jim Johnson, the Orioles' closer, to tie the score in the ninth, and then hit a home run off the left-hander Brian Matusz leading off the 12th to give the Yankees a memorable 3-2 victory.
"I just had a gut feeling," Girardi said.
The win gave the Yankees a two games-to-one advantage in the best-of-five series, and an incalculable amount of momentum. They can wrap up the series in Game 4 on Thursday night with Phil Hughes on the mound against Joe Saunders.
But they could be without Derek Jeter, who left Wednesday's game with an apparent foot injury after batting in the eighth inning. Jeter fouled a ball off the top of his left foot before hitting a triple in the third inning, and he was limping throughout the rest of the game. He remained in the dugout, but his status for Game 4 was not immediately known.
Ibanez's star turn was not his first in his inaugural Yankee season, and not even his first this month. On Oct. 2 he hit a two-run pinch-hit homer against the Red Sox, then knocked in the winning run in the 12th inning to help the Yankees keep their one-game lead over the Orioles in the American League East season standings. He also hit a game-tying pinch-hit home run against the Athletics on Sept. 22.
On Wednesday, Ibanez took a 1-0 fastball from Johnson and sent it screaming into the right-field stands as a slumbering Yankee Stadium began shaking.
"He just made himself a legend in Yankee eyes," Nick Swisher said.
Rodriguez, watching glumly from the dugout railing, saw the ball leave Ibanez's bat and thrust his hands in the air in jubilation and began jumping up and down with his teammates.
"I was just trying to get a good pitch to hit," Ibanez said. "I don't even really remember what happened. It was kind of a blur. I think some time down the line I'll remember it and recall it, but I think I was just trying to get a good pitch to hit."
Afterward, Russell Martin called the game the best moment of his career, and the veteran Eric Chavez agreed.
"There's not even a close second," Chavez said.
So the Yankees went into extra innings of a pivotal game in the playoffs with Jeter and Rodriguez watching from the bench in gray sweatshirts. Rodriguez, who went 0 for 3 with two strikeouts, is now 1 for 12 in the series.
The Yankees have had more success off Johnson, who went 51 for 54 in save opportunities in the regular season, than against other Orioles pitcher in the series. He gave up five runs in the ninth inning of the Yankees' victory in Game 1. But they could not get to Baltimore starter Miguel Gonzalez, the 28-year-old rookie starting pitcher who held the Yankees to only one run and five hits in seven innings. He struck out eight.
Hiroki Kuroda pitched almost as well for the Yankees, who have scored only five runs in their last two games. He pitched eight and one-third innings, also allowing only five hits. His only mistakes were solo home runs to Ryan Flaherty in the third and Manny Machado in the fifth for all the Orioles' runs.
Machado, the Orioles' 20-year-old third baseman, No. 9 hitter and protégé of Rodriguez, slugged a home run into the Orioles' bullpen in left field in the fifth inning to give Baltimore a 2-1 advantage in the fifth. Before being lifted for Ibanez, Rodriguez, the designated hitter, went 0 for 3, striking out twice and hearing boos from the disgruntled fans at Yankee Stadium.
Gonzalez is well known to the Yankees, who faced him twice this year, both times at Yankee Stadium. He went 2-0 with a 2.63 earned run average against the Yankees in those starts. Wednesday's game was only his 16th major league start.
Originally signed by the Angels as an amateur free agent in 2004, he was taken by the Red Sox in the 2008 Rule 5 Draft, then released by Boston last winter before signing with the Orioles in spring training.
He didn't make his major league debut until May 29 in relief, then made his first start July 6 when he beat the Angels, but he looked every bit the playoff-hardened veteran Wednesday, keeping the Yankees off balance with his free and easy style and excellent command.
The Orioles grabbed the lead in the third inning on a home run by Flaherty, a rookie and the team's No. 8 hitter, who swatted the first pitch he saw high over the wall in right field. The Yankees tied the score in the bottom of the third as Martin doubled and scored on a triple to center by Jeter.
Kuroda escaped a bases-loaded jam in the fourth by getting Flaherty to ground out to first, but the Orioles broke through on Machado's homer in the fifth.
Machado grew up in Miami as a fan of Rodriguez, and he wears No. 13 as a tribute. The two got to know one another when Machado reached out to Rodriguez two years ago, and they have become friendly.
Rodriguez was back in the No. 3 spot in the batting order after speculation that he might be moved down. But Girardi decided to keep Rodriguez in his familiar spot, sticking with what has worked during the Yankees' tight playoff race in September and early October. Rodriguez was batting third in front of the sizzling Robinson Cano in those games.
"We had playoff baseball the whole month of September and we were pretty good with the lineup we sent out there," Girardi said before the game, "and he was in that spot. He got on base."
But with the Yankees facing desperation, Girardi made what would previously have been considered an unthinkable move. And it worked spectacularly.
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