Major League Baseball

FOR YANKS, IT'S SHORT & SWEEP - THIS TIME, IT'S TEAM - NOT STARS - DOING JOB

Published Oct. 11, 2010 10:10 p.m. ET

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INSIDE PITCH

GAME 3: YANKEES 6, TWINS 1

HERO

Phil Hughes delivered an emphatic answer to those who worried how he would respond to his first postseason start: The 24-year-old right-hander allowed just four singles and struck out six in seven shutout innings. And he was at his best with runners on, erasing a leadoff hit in the fourth with a prompt double play, reaching back for a strikeout and a popup with two men on in the fifth and punching out Jason Kubel with two on to end the seventh.

ZERO

Reigning AL Most Valuable Player Joe Mauer didn't have much value to the Twins as they were swept out of the playoffs. He went 3-for-12 with three strikeouts and failed to drive in a run. He also was 0-for-4 throwing out basestealers and committed an error on a throw last night.

KEY MOMENT

After having to come from behind in the first two games of the series - and their last eight postseason games, all wins, over the Twins - Jorge Posada (above) gave the Yankees an early lead for a change with a RBI single in the second inning.

BY THE time the division series was complete last year, by the time the Yankees had swept the Twins, they had established a star-laden way in which they would drive to a 27th championship.

Alex Rodriguez, the most expensive position player in history, had shucked the idea that he could not play in the postseason with a series of high-magnitude hits. CC Sabathia had authored dominance to also push aside concerns if he was a playoff heavyweight.

Derek Jeter hit, Mariano Rivera closed and - like "Ocean's Eleven" - the Yankees leaned on stars for success.

In 2010, the Yankees again swept and demoralized the Twins. But they did it in a different style, carried at least as much by their chorus as by their luminaries. Rodriguez drove in just one run in this series. Sabathia was the least effective of the Yankees' three starters.

Yet Minnesota once more went out in three games.

In knocking out the Twins in the first round for the fourth time since 2003, the Yankees sent a message to the remaining playoff field: Beware of us. All of us.

The Yankees closed out Minnesota last night 6-1 behind the superb pitching of Phil Hughes and behind the kind of soup-to-nuts offense that served them so well all series.

"We pride ourselves that it takes 25 guys," said Rodriguez, champagne bottle in hand in the clinching clubhouse.

"No one in here feels they have to be like the NBA player who scores 30 points. Score your 12, throw a couple of assists, it is enough with this team."

Rodriguez was being gracious. This was not a 25-man victory. A search party is currently out looking for Joba Chamberlain, and the back end of the team - the Austin Kearns, Sergio Mitres, Ramiro Penas - did not play. But the Yanks got more production from their No. 8 hitters than their cleanup man, a better performance from their No. 3 starter than their ace.

By the end of the fourth inning of the clincher, every Yankee had either a run or an RBI except for A-Rod and Jeter. When Marcus Thames homered in the fourth, it meant all 10 Yankees position players who started in this series had a hit. When Nick Swisher homered in the seventh, it meant all 10 of those Yankees had an RBI in this series. Nine of the 10 scored a run. Jeter, who holds the major league record for runs in both the playoffs (99) and division series (37), ironically was the Yankee without a run. Yet he swung the bat as well as any time in the second half.

Which is part of the puzzle either the Rangers or Rays will have to cope with in the ALCS - the length of this lineup. The big hits in Games 1 and 2 were delivered from the eighth spot by Curtis Granderson, then Lance Berkman. Thames, as he was all season, was a lefty masher last night. Mark Teixeira showed none of the indecisiveness of last postseason. And you would assume that, at some point, A-Rod will be heard from in a significant, dramatic way.

The offense is relentless. It has a Chinese water torture style; drip, drip, drip until the opponent breaks.

"One-through-nine, we can score with anybody," Teixeira said.

And the results were just fine one-through-three in the rotation. Sabathia pitched shorter (six innings) and gave up more runs (four) than in any of his five starts last postseason. But he still won Game 1. Andy Pettitte dispelled concerns about his groin and readiness by pitching better than Sabathia. And Hughes outdid Pettitte, having what A-Rod called his "Hello, America" effort in flushing concerns about exhaustion and inexperience.

"That was a big-time start," Rodriguez said. "That was really, really impressive."

In his playoff starting debut, Hughes became the first Yankee to throw at least seven shutout innings in a postseason game since Mike Mussina on Oct. 13, 2001, in ALDS Game 3 vs. the A's. That 1-0 victory is remembered for Jeter's flip play that nabbed Jeremy Giambi at the plate.

Nothing so dramatic was needed in Game 3 or, really, in the entire series. The Yanks just had too many weapons for the Twins. Too many stars. Too deep a chorus. Too much.

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