Yankees relievers dominate Twins in ALDS Game 1: Yankees turn on the power

Yankees relievers dominate Twins in ALDS Game 1 fight for the bullpens

As expected, ALDS Game 1 between the New York Yankees and Minnesota Twins was a scoring affair with many points. The two highest-scoring teams in baseball combined for 14 runs and five home runs on Friday-evening (NYY 10, MIN 4).

In addition to homers, the Yankees and Twins also have something else in common: really good bullpens. The acclaimed relief crew from New York is perhaps the best in baseball. But very quietly, the Minnesota bullpen placed 7.3 during the regular season, directly behind the Yankees (7.4 WAR) in 91 fewer innings.

The Minnesota Twins swore it would be different this time.

Another team.

Another year.

Then the mighty New York Yankees arrived at Yankee Stadium on Friday night, and it was the same chorus.

A starting pitcher that lasted only four innings.

A double blunder.

A collapse of the seven-run bullpen.

Hello dear, they are twins again.

The Twins destroyed themselves, and towards the end of the night, they set a Major League record with their 14th consecutive defeat after the season, again losing the Yankees, 10-4, to an insanely sold-out crowd of 49,233.

The Yankees have now defeated the Twins in 11 consecutive postseason games, equal to the longest postseason winning series on a single team in baseball history, tied to the Boston Red Sox streak over the Los Angeles Angels.

"We have an excellent bullpen. We have a bullpen that we're going to rely on. We're going to call upon them in a lot of different situations," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said earlier this week. "... I would anticipate our bullpen being a very important part of this series and everything that we see from this point on."

It wasn't long before Game 1 became a battle for the bullpens after starting pitchers Jose Berrios (four innings) and James Paxton (4 2/3 innings) each handed in three runs. It was a 3-3 game after only four innings and the game was in the hands of the relievers. To be honest, neither auxiliary units were switched off. New York, however, was a lot better.

Zack Littell, a former Yankee prospect, started the fifth for Minnesota and was very wild. He came in and walked a batter, threw a wild pitch, then hit Brett Gardner to base two runners. Tyler Duffey replaced him and eventually gave up the start-two-run double to Gleyber Torres. Cody Stashak then allowed insurance solo homers to DJ LeMahieu and Gardner in the sixth.

It was LeMahieu who officially unveiled the game with a base-clearing double against starter-turn-reliever Kyle Gibson in the seventh inning.

"These are guys we have leaned on heavily throughout the year," Baldelli said following Game 1. "We're going to continue to lean on them heavily. We're going to see them back out there and throwing in important situations ... Our guys are resilient. Our guys have had outings here and there over the course of the year that didn't go as planned, and they come right back."

Yankees manager Aaron Boone caught a lot or complained that he was not aggressive enough with his bullpen last fall. He silenced those critics in Game 1. Boone used the powerful specialist Adam Ottavino to agree with Nelson Cruz in the fifth inning and asked Tommy Kahnle to get two outs in the fifth and sixth. Chad Green also took two outs.

"I just think there were some spots that I felt good about certain guys in," Boone said following Game 1. "So I just felt like there were certain times in the game that matchups we wanted to try to slam the door, and fortunately, the offense was able to add on to allow us to change things up a little bit and keep (Zack Britton) to an inning. So it just kind of unfolded that way for us."

Before LeMahieu's three-run double, Boone was also prepared to use Britton for two innings, something he had never asked to do in the regular season. Heck, only once did Britton take four in a performance. Britton threw the seventh inning with the Yankees 7-4 and would have thrown the eighth if not for the double by LeMahieu. Instead, Boone called on J.A. Happ.

"We were prepared to be aggressive there, and we were prepared to try to split up the seventh, eighth, and ninth with Britton and (Aroldis Chapman) in that spot," Boone said. "But once we got the lead leverage, we decided to go with J.A. there for an inning. It was good to see him get in the game like that where, obviously, a different role for him, and I thought threw the ball really well."

Britton added: "I don't want to give away some strategy, but we have an idea of how we want to use (everyone) depending on the game situation. I was ready to go ... I was going out for the eighth (before we broke the game open)."

In a weird way, the use of the bullpen means so aggressive that the Yankees have all their important late-inning relievers available for Game 2 on Saturday. No one had an extensive performance - the well-equipped Chapman (4 1/3 innings since August 31) led the way with 18 pitches in the ninth. In total, the 4 1/3 inning workload was divided among six relievers. That leaves the bullpen in pretty good shape.

"The other good thing about tonight is I feel like all of our guys are back in play for tomorrow, and we're not pushing them necessarily," Boone added.

As for the Twins, their bullpen is in great condition for Game 2, but for all the wrong reasons. Closer Taylor Rogers along with setup men Sergio Romo and Trevor May didn't pitch in Game 1. Duffey threw only 25 pitches. Baldelli's late-inning relievers are equipped for Saturday. My guess is that he would trade an equipped bullpen for a Game 1 victory, but that's how it went.

"We could run them out there, probably still reasonably late in the game, but maybe push them up a little bit," Baldelli said when asked about using Romo and Rogers more aggressively. "Again, with the five innings we're going to cover out of the bullpen tonight, we could have seen -- we could have ended up seeing something like that. So that is definitely possible."

In all likelihood, the team that wins the ALDS will be the one that gets the most home runs and gets the best bullpen work. The Twins defeated the Yankees, 3-2, in Game 1, but New York had the better auxiliary work of the bullpen. Now the Yankees now only need to win two or their next four games to advance to the ALCS.