Major League Baseball

FIRST-QUENCHER; PLAYOFFS FINALLY FUN FOR RANGERS

Published Oct. 20, 2010 10:13 p.m. ET

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ARLINGTON, Texas - How do they shoulder these enormous burdens, you ask? How does a team like the Rangers, coming off a hideous, heart-wrenching loss, carrying the scarlet number of "zero" on their chests - as in the number of times they'd ever won a home playoff game - handle all the ghosts, all the goblins, all the crushing waves of negative history?

Here's how:

"You're kidding, right?" Josh Hamilton asked.

That was the answer. This was the question: How does it finally feel to win a postseason game within the allegedly friendly confines of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex? Team's been in Arlington since 1972. Franchise has been in existence since '61. This was the first ever. How does it feel to get off the schneid?

"We'd never won a home game before today?" Hamilton drawled, smiling, shaking his head maybe half an hour after the Rangers had drawn even at a game apiece in this American League Championship Series with a 7-2 win over the Yankees.

"Wow."

Wow. That's how. That's the beautiful part of being in the arena, rather than at it: you don't obsess the way civilians do. It's a lesson we should have learned by now after watching the Yankees all these years. What's the line from "Bull Durham"? Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains.

"Once we left the field," Rangers outfielder David Murphy said, "we went to bed."

There were 50,000 fans who left Rangers Ballpark in Arlington Friday night looking as if they'd just seen a snuff film, and long after the game was over there were belligerent voices wafting out of talk-radio speakers, and the headline of the local paper aped the one on the front of The Post:

TEXAS FOLD 'EM.

The Rangers? They went to bed.

"The only way you're going to survive in this game is to be able to put the good and the bad behind you," Hamilton explained. "We didn't dwell after losing Game 1. We aren't going to dwell about losing Game 2. We'll go to New York, have a good practice, and get ready to be yelled at by the New York crowd on Monday."

What the Rangers showed us yesterday, as much as anything, is that they have paid attention to what the Yankees do, what teams like the Phillies and Red Sox have done these past few years. Elite teams with the longest lineups and deepest talent also tend to have the shortest memories. They aren't impressed by what they do well, so they are rarely depressed by what they do poorly.

Listen to Mark Teixeira.

"For us to be able to come to this park and face two great starting pitchers and come away with a split?" the Yankees' first baseman said. "That's phenomenal. We came in rusty, after the long lay-off, and we took a little time to get our timing back and now we get to play Game 3 in our building. How can you not like that?"

Teixeira wouldn't bite when the subject of Cliff Lee came up, but why would he? Why would any of them? The Yankees have beaten ominous names before. They won one of Curt Schilling's starts in the '01 World Series, nearly beat him in another, bombarded him in Game 1 of the '04 ALCS, pre-bloody sock. And the Yankees all but drove Pedro Martinez out of the American League.

You think Cliff Lee has some kind of immunity chip?

"We have to face him, that's a challenge for us," Teixeira said. "But he has to face us, too. And that's also going to be a challenge for him. It's going to be fun."

Fun. This is fun, for both teams. Maybe the biggest problem the Twins have had over the years is that they usually look like they're serving jury duty when they play the Yankees. The Rangers don't. The Rangers are having a blast.

And that's step one.

INSIDE PITCH

GAME 2: Rangers 7, Yankees 2

HERO

The Rangers' 7-8-9 hitters, all of whom were on the bench to start Game 1, were in the middle of two-run rallies in the second and third innings. David Murphy, in the seventh spot, hit a solo homer and an RBI double. No. 9 hitter Mitch Moreland scored after a single in the second and Bengie Molina, batting eighth, slugged an RBI double in the third.

TURNING POINT

Texas ripped seven extra-base hits in the first five innings, but the most important play for the young Rangers may have come in the first inning, when speedy shortstop Elvis Andrus swiped home on the back end of a double steal with Josh Hamilton. The aggressive call gave the Rangers another early lead and signaled they would not be haunted by their Game 1 meltdown.

ZERO

Can it be anyone other than Phil Hughes? For the second straight day, the Yankees starter was a dud: He had more baserunners allowed (13) than outs recorded (12) and was charged with seven earned runs. The performance hardly justified manager Joe Girardi's decision to start the young right-hander on the road.

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