Mehring Monday: Raul
He did it again.
He is Raul Ibanez. It would
be the game tying homer in the bottom of the ninth inning of Saturday's first
game of the American League Championship Series.
Again would be, well, again.
His professional career
didn't start in Appleton, but he spent the 1993 and 1994 seasons with the
Foxes at Goodland Field. Ibanez is
remembered well. Here's is
Jim Olski's note on Ibanez from last Friday in The
Post Crescent:
I helped cover the Foxes that season. I had
two years of high school Spanish, long forgotten, and two trimesters of Latin in
college. I checked out a book on Spanish from the library and quickly knew I
would not be able to talk to the players who spoke only Spanish.
Ibanez bridged the gap. He patiently
interpreted my questions and his teammates' answers. I don't see how anyone
could be a teammate of Ibanez for long without appreciating him as a good guy.
This Flashback
Friday is a 1994 story in the PC about Jose Cuellar, a
Cuban defector who played for the Foxes in 1994.
Ibanez was the interpreter:
...
In Appleton, he met [Ivan]
Montane and Ibanez, two players with Cuban roots. Montane, 21, and Ibanez,
22, grew up together in Miami as best friends, shrugging their shoulders when
their mothers told them stories about defecting from Cuba.
Since meeting Cuellar, however, their interest has grown. The three get
together during batting practice almost every day to exchange stories about
Cuba.
...
Ibanez's father spent two
years working in Cuban sugar-cane fields in an agreement with the government so
his family could leave in 1969.
Both upper-middle class families left their fortunes behind to start from
scratch in the United States.
But until recently, Ibanez and Montane were oblivious to the hardship.
"You really don't realize it. You know, in Miami, everyone is
Cuban-American like us, and everyone speaks Spanish and English," Ibanez
said. "You really don't realize it until someone like Jose comes
along.
Ibanez has been a major league
baseball player since making it to the big leagues with the Seattle Mariners in
1996. He never had more than 350 at
bats until the 2002 season when he was with the Kansas City Royals.
He road took him back to Seattle, on to Philadelphia, and finally to the
Yankees in New York.
The first taste of playoff baseball for Ibanez was in 2000.
He was with the Mariners and went 3-for-8 in the ALDS against the Chicago
White Sox. Then, he was 0-for-9 in
the ALCS against the Yankees. He hit
no homers and drove in no runs in those playoff games.
Prior to the 2012 playoffs,
Ibanez had appeared in 36 postseason games.
He had three homers in those three dozen games:
October
15, 2009: Ibanez hits a
three run home run to put the Phillies up 8-4 in the top of the eighth inning
for Game One of the NLDS at Dodger Stadium.
Philadelphia needed that homer because the Dodgers scored twice in the
bottom of the eighth inning. The
Phillies won the game 8-6.
October
1, 2011: Ibanez hits a two-run home run
in the bottom of the sixth inning against the Cardinals to push the Phillies
lead from 4-3 to 6-3 on the way to an 11-6 win over St. Louis in Game One of the
NLDS.
Ibanez had hit 271 regular
season home runs over the span of his career.
You can see all of them at his home
run log on Baseball Reference.
If you look at the notes column on that page, you'll see the six walk
off home runs he has hit....or, I can just link to them right here:
September 26, 1999
April
11, 2002
April
20, 2004
August
7, 2008
April
19, 2009
July 8,
2011
Baseball Reference notes
that Ibanez has hit 32 homers to tie games and 98 homers to put his team ahead
in games. That's a total of 130
out of his 271 regular season home runs. BR
also notes that 66 of his homers are high
leverage.
High leverage homers would be
home runs like the ones that he hit against the Orioles in Game Three of the
2012 ALDS against the Orioles.
His first home run, the pinch-hit homer in the bottom of the ninth inning with
the Yankees trailing 2-1with one out and none on base, turned that game around
from an 89% chance of the Orioles winning to a 58% chance of the Yankees
winning.
His second homer, the leadoff home run in the twelfth inning, pushed the win
expectancy graph from 64% in favor of a Yankees win to 100%.
Ibanez pushed the graph 83% to the good for the Yankees.
Those would be high leverage home runs.
Here's
the chart from that game.
Then, there was Saturday's home run in Game One of the ALCS against the
Tigers. Detroit was rolling at 4-0
and Jose Valverde is on the hill. Ichiro
hits a two-run home run with one out to make the score 4-2.
Then, Ibanez hits a two-run home run with two outs to tie the game 4-4.
The Tigers won the game, but check
the chart to see how big those home runs were in the game.
The legend of Ibanez grows.