Matsui's monster day lifts Yankees to title

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By Ben Goessling

The idea of Hideki Matsui always had been bigger than the ballplayer himself. How could it not be?

By the time he arrived in New York in 2003, he already had been in the American conscience since he was a 20-year-old phenom playing in the 1994 Japan Series while baseball fans in the United States had nothing to watch because of a strike. He was the expensive overseas bauble brought in by a Yankees organization that had to have the latest and greatest. He had the outsized nickname "Godzilla" and a Japanese fan base that adored him.

But in New York, he only had good-but-not-gargantuan results and postseason performances short of the ones any Yankees player needs to join the pantheon of New York legends.

Until now.

On Wednesday night - in possibly his last game in New York - Matsui finally transformed into the hero the Yankees sought when he signed six years ago. With six RBI in Game 6, he tied Bobby Richardson's 49-year-old World Series record and elevated the Yankees to their 27th championship with a 7-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.

"It's awesome," Matsui said through an interpreter. "It's unbelievable. I'm surprised myself."

The designated hitter drove in the Yankees' first runs with a homer off Pedro Martinez in the second inning, two more with a single in the third and his final with a double in the fifth, ensuring the Yankees' first title since 2000 and lifting a crushing load of self-made expectations that had mounted since then.

"The guys have been through it so much, and I think it's the job they do putting this club together every year," manager Joe Girardi said. "It's unbelievable how this team came together in spring training and their willingness to be unselfish and play the game the right way."

The title brought quite a bit to baseball's flagship franchise. Vindication for Alex Rodriguez after four disappointing postseasons. Validation for Girardi, who followed Joe Torre's quartet of championships with a third-place finish in 2008 and raised doubts about his ability to meet New York's stratospheric standards. A reasonable rate of return for the Steinbrenner family on their $423.5 million free agent binge in the offseason, when they signed pitchers CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett and first baseman Mark Teixeira. Another title for Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera, the four Yankees players who formed the bridge from Torre's championship teams to this one.

Matsui, whose last championship was in Japan, facilitated all of it. He homered three times and drove in eight runs in the series to earn World Series MVP honors despite not starting a game in Philadelphia.

Back in the lineup for Game 6 and facing Martinez, Matsui began his grand evening in the second inning. Martinez walked Rodriguez to start the inning. Against Matsui, he kept tossing high-80 mph fastballs over the plate, and Matsui kept blasting 300-foot fouls, signaling he just needed time to straighten one out. On the eighth pitch of the at-bat, Matsui pushed Martinez over the edge, blasting a fastball to the right-field upper deck for a 2-0 New York lead.

Starting for the second time in New York during this World Series, Martinez was nowhere near the pitcher he was in Game 2. The former Boston Red Sox ace gets by on location now, and while he was able to slip a curveball past the Yankees a few times, his pitches drifted up in the strike zone as the game wore on.

Martinez's control problems were at their peak by the time Matsui came up again in the third inning. The Yankees loaded the bases against him on a single, walk and hit batsman, causing Phillies manager Charlie Manuel to get Chad Durbin warming in the bullpen. Durbin was ready by the time Matsui came up, but Manuel let Martinez face him.

"He's got experience, he knows how to pitch and everything, and you know, I had to let him face that guy," Manuel said. "It wasn't time for me to take him out."

Again, like a cat toying with its prey, Matsui pulled a would-be base hit just foul before dumping a two-run single in front of center fielder Shane Victorino.

He leveled one more blow in the fifth inning, doubling to right off J.A. Happ to bring in two more runs. By the end of that inning, the Yankees led 7-1, all but ensuring Pettitte would win his record sixth series-clinching game and his third of this postseason.

The veteran left-hander gave up a homer to Ryan Howard in the sixth and walked five but allowed only two hits with runners on base. And with Rivera waiting in case of emergency, there was little doubt the defending champions would cede their title to the Yankees.

With a younger roster and reserves of cash to spend, New York likely will enter 2010 as the favorite again. The Yankees might not enter it with Matsui, who is due to be a free agent and could leave as the Yankees try to make the DH spot a rotating haven for veterans like Jeter, Rodriguez and Posada.

If he is leaving town, though, he'll be trailed by a postseason shadow finally as big as the one that followed him west from Japan.

"It's certainly different [than winning a title in Japan]," Matsui said. "All I can say is, I feel great."