The New York Yankees won the American League Division Series after beating the Baltimore Orioles 3-1 in Friday's deciding game.
The Yankees will now face the Detroit Tigers for the AL championship, which starts on Saturday. The Tigers defeated the Oakland Athletics winning their division series.
The Associated Press quoted Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia, who was brilliant in Friday's game, as saying: "It is still a long way to go. I still got hopefully three or four more starts. So the job is not done yet."
The Yankees scored in the fifth inning, without a base-runner in the first four innings, with Mike Teixeira leading off a single, stealing second and scoring on Ibanez'z single.
Ichiro Suzuki and Curtis Granderson demonstrated their skills for the Yankees. Suzuki gave his side a 2-0 lead in the sixth inning when he added a run scoring double while Granderson increased the lead by 3-0 in the seventh inning, hitting a solo home run.
The Orioles, on the other hand, managed only one hit against Sabathia in the first seven innings. They scored in the eighth inning finally. They were trailing 1-0 in the sixth when umpire Culbreth signalled a foul hit following McLouth's 3-1 pitch which appeared to be going deep down the right-field line.
Culbreth said: "I saw it go to the right of the pole. There is netting there and it didn't touch the netting. It did not change direction."
Culbreth's decision stood despite video reviews.
McLouth said: "It started off fair and it was just hooking a little bit. I thought it was foul just in game speed. A couple of people mentioned it might've ticked the pole, but he was way closer than I was and I was satisfied after they went down and looked at the replay that it was foul.''
Sabathia, who looked in supreme form, defeated Baltimore for the second time in six days.
Joe Girardi, the Yankees manager said in a news conference: "He is our ace, that's the bottom line. He wants the ball and he is very strong."
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