Damon went 3 for 5 with two runs scored and an RBI, but it was his work in the Yankees' three-run ninth inning that clearly was the difference.

With the score tied at 4-4 and two out and nobody on base, Damon worked one of the best at-bats seen in this postseason.

On the ninth pitch and with a full count, Damon stroked a 94-m.p.h. Brad Lidge fastball to left field for a base hit.

"I felt his slider made me look silly on a couple pitches, so I kept sitting slider and just reacted to the fastball," Damon said. "So after the third 3-2 count, he threw three fastballs, and fortunately I got enough of it to get it over the shortstop."

Damon's grinding style in that at-bat impressed everybody in the Yankees dugout.

"It was just an unbelievable at-bat by Johnny Damon," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.

With Mark Teixeira at the plate, the Phillies were in a dead-pull shift for the lefthanded switch-hitter. Damon stole second. Because Phillies third baseman Pedro Feliz was covering second on the play, third base was open. Damon kept on going to third with nobody at the bag.

"What I had to see before I could start running to third base was how Pedro caught the ball," Damon said. "So I knew it dragged him off some, and I'm just glad that when I started running I still had some of my young legs behind me."

It obviously caught the Phillies off guard.

"I went to cover the base," Feliz said. "He saw no one on the other side, so he took the base."

It was scored as two stolen bases for Damon.

"That's a play we never got anybody to say, 'OK you gotta go there, you gotta go here,' " Feliz said. "So I got the bag at the time; J-Roll [Jimmy Rollins] was backing me up and nobody was on the other side. He saw it happen and he took third."

Girardi said it's the type of play somebody has to make, especially with the heart of the Yankees order coming up.

"It was a great instinctual play," Girardi said.

Damon took into account the fact that he had to outrun Feliz to third base, as opposed to an infielder who could truly fly.

"I still have some decent speed left in the tank, but I was just hoping - I knew Pedro's speed, also," Damon said. "I mean, if it was Chone Figgins - that might have been tough."

Lidge then hit Teixeira with a pitch, putting runners at the corners.

Damon wound up scoring the winning run on Alex Rodriguez's RBI double, and Jorge Posada added two insurance runs with a single that brought home Teixeira and Rodriguez.

"I felt that being on third base, it probably takes away a slider, a tough slider in the dirt that I may be able to score on," Damon said. "Alex got two fastballs."

Afterward, Damon was letting the magnitude of the win and his contribution soak in.

"We battled in a tough environment here in Philadelphia to overcome a tough eighth inning," he said. "So that ninth inning was huge for us."