Alex
Rodriguez’s long homerless drought is over, and he picked a hell of a
time to bring it to an end, making the Yankees walkoff winners in a
game that is certain to go down as the first true classic in the
history of the new Yankee Stadium.

With the New York Yankees and
the Boston Red Sox still scoreless with two outs in the bottom of the
15th inning, ARod got a hanging slider on a 2-1 count. He did not miss
it.

Rodriguez stayed back, and then uncorked that short and
oh-so-quick swing we’ve seen so many times, sending the mistake
rocketing toward the Boston bullpen in left-center field. The ball
easily cleared the wall for a 2-run, walkoff home run.

It was
ARod’s sixth walkoff homer as a Yankee, his 20th home run of the
season, and the 573rd of his career, which ties him with Harmon
Killebrew for 9th place on the all time MLB list.

There was no question in the manager’s mind how important the game-winner was for these Yankees.

“This
would be a very hard game to lose tonight,” Joe Girardi said.
“Physically, the guys are worn down, the bullpens are worn down.”

“(It was an) important game, and a real good game to win.”

Of course, there would never have been an ARod walkoff had it not been for some amazing work from both pitching staffs.

The
starters, A.J. Burnett and Josh Beckett, were equally brilliant.
Beckett pitched seven shutout innings, while Burnett worked 7.2 shutout
innings, allowing only one hit – a leadoff bloop single to Jacoby
Ellsbury.

The bullpens took over in the eighth, and kept putting up the zeroes.

For the Yankees, Phil Hughes recorded the final out of the eighth, and then gave way to Mariano Rivera in the top of the ninth.

Rivera, who has struggled when asked to pitch in tie games this season, worked a perfect ninth inning.

The
unsung hero of this game was Alfredo Aceves, who took over to begin the
10th inning and proceeded to work three scoreless innings. Aceves threw
27 of his 37 pitches for strikes and allowed only one hit and one walk
while striking out three.

Brian Bruney, looking as good as he’s
looked since returning from the disabled list, pitched scoreless
innings in the 13th and 14th, and Phil Coke worked a scoreless 15th
inning to set up ARod’s heroic shot.

The home run ended a
72-at-bat homerless streak for ARod, which qualifies as the longest
such streak within a single season in the third baseman’s career.

2-0 Yankees is the final in a game that is sure to be recognized as an instant classic.

The
win gives the Yankees a season-high-matching 4.5 game lead in the A.L.
East, and pushes the team’s record to 25 games over .500 for the first
time since the end of the 2007 season.

Since June 21, the
Yankees have played 9.5 games better than Boston, and gone from 5 games
back to 4.5 games up, as a result. And now Boston is left to try to get
over a very frustrating loss in a game where they ace pitched great,
and they still came up short.