Yankees Win With All Their Might

Sabathia and Jeter Propel Rout of Twins: Yankees 7, Twins 2

NEW YORK, Oct. 7 -- The New York Yankees will probably win this series. They have a mighty lineup, a mighty ace, and now they have a series lead. In all of 3 1/2 hours, they can grab a feel-good story by the neck and shake the life from it. The Yankees, unlike any other club in the history of the U.S. dollar, were engineered to do just that. They are the Haves, and right now, they have everything but certainty itself on their payroll.

When they grabbed Game 1 of the American League Division Series on Wednesday night, defeating the Minnesota Twins, 7-2, the disparity between the playoff team with the best record and the playoff team with the poorest record only widened. There were about 12 minutes, maybe, when the Twins had an early lead and Yankee Stadium was groaning and fretting, but then the Yankees came back, building their lead in the same manner in which they rebuilt their team -- with relentless resources, big-clout moments and plenty of roaring fanfare.

They got 6 2/3 innings from CC Sabathia, who finished with eight strikeouts and a standing ovation. They got home runs from Derek Jeter and Hideki Matsui. They got two hits and two RBI from Alex Rodriguez. Big business, taking care of its business.

"We wanted to come out here and play well as a group," Jeter said. "We did a lot of great things today. It started with CC. Our bullpen was good. Mo [Mariano Rivera] closed it out. We swung the bats well. We hit a couple of home runs. We couldn't have drawn it up any better for us."

Under any circumstance, at any time, New York would have been heavily favored in this series. The Yankees defeated the Twins in all seven regular season meetings this year, after all. Their total offseason spending ($423.5 million) exceeded the value of the Twins' franchise ($356 million, per Forbes).

But the Twins' disadvantage, in this case, goes much deeper. As a byproduct of their exhilarating chase to win the AL Central -- they won 17 of their final 21 to overtake the Detroit Tigers, capping the comeback with a 12-inning victory in Tuesday's tiebreaker game -- the Twins arrived in New York running on fumes. To be more precise: They arrived in New York at 4:15 a.m. Wednesday, and tried to catch a few hours' sleep before fighting more odds.

"I think a day off for the most part would be pretty nice," Minnesota Manager Ron Gardenhire said after this one. "Take a relaxing day off [on Thursday] and the come back and have some good energy."

For Game 1, the Twins had to rely on Brian Duensing, their only rested starter. When July started, Duensing was pitching for Class AAA Rochester. He's making $400,000 this year. And here he found himself in the windy Bronx cathedral, opposing the high-profile New York ace who was signed this offseason precisely to pitch in games of this magnitude.

Just briefly, the Twins had a 2-0 lead against Sabathia and 49,464 fans had a scare. But in the bottom of the third, just a half-inning after Minnesota gained the edge, New York began its long and steady barrage. In the third, Jeter popped a fat Duensing slider just inside the left field foul pole, tying the score. The Yankees took the lead in the fourth with a Nick Swisher RBI double. After a walk, a hit and a run in the fifth, Gardenhire, dealing with a bullpen ravaged by Tuesday's extra innings, replaced Duensing with Francisco Liriano. The batter: Matsui.

The fourth pitch Liriano threw was a fastball, across the plate and thigh-high. Matsui, with that steady stance and quick-jerk swing, jumped at it like a predator. The ball traveled straight over the center field fence, and the stadium erupted as Matsui trotted the bases. The Yankees had a 6-2 lead.

This is the way New York blueprinted its playoff run to begin. Playing with the lead, there were no complications. Sabathia settled down from his shaky start, at one point retiring 11 of 12.

"First game of the series, first game of the playoffs, I just wanted to come out and do as well as I can, and I was able to hold them down," said Sabathia, who had a 7.92 postseason ERA entering the evening. "I got a little sketchy there, I guess, in the third, but was able to come back and put up zeroes like I have all year."

A succession of Yankees relievers took care of the rest. Phil Hughes, Phil Coke and Joba Chamberlain all came in for situational outs, and in the ninth Rivera, despite allowing two base runners, closed the door. By the last out, Yankee Stadium was already one-third empty.

"We know what we need to do," Sabathia said. "And it just feels good to start it off the right way."