Yankees 4, Angels 1: Another dominant pitching performance from Yankees starter CC Sabathia (8 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 7 K) and some timely hitting, to go along with poor defense and starting pitching from John Lackey, allowed the NY Yankees to come away with the Game 1 victory in the cold, rainy start to the ALCS. Expecting a good outing from Lackey, instead the Angels only received 5.2 innings. Lackey also gave up all four runs and walked three batters. The Yankees went ahead 2-0 in the 1st inning with a sacrifice fly from the hot hitting Alex Rodriguez and an RBI single from Hideki Matsui. However, Matsui’s hit was an infield popup that fell in between third baseman Chone Figgins and shortstop Erick Aybar. Matsui made Lackey pay for walking A-Rod in the 5th, ripping an RBI double and increasing the lead to 3-1. In the 6th (the end for Lackey), the defense did in the Angels, after two errors lead to another Yankee run. The two runs in the first were more than enough for Sabathia, who threw just 113 pitches in 8 innings (compared to the 114 thrown by Lackey into the 6th).

Yankees 4, Angels 3 (13 innings): The weather forecast for NY was grim for a second straight night, but for the most part the rain held out until the late innings. It was really a well-played game (for the conditions) and both pitching staffs were excellent. It took 13 innings in a hard fought battle for the Yankees to take a 2-0 series lead, heading out to warm and sunny LA for Games 3-5. The Yankees got to Angels starter Joe Saunders early (2 runs) and it looked like he was going to put together another lackluster performance like Lackey did the night before. However, he settled in to go 7 innings giving up just the 2 runs on 6 hits. He was helped out by the double play ball, as the Yankees hit into 3 of them. AJ Burnett was on early (allowed just one hit through four innings) while also being helped out by great defense at first by Mark Teixeira, repeatedly stretching for full extension to make the catches at first. However, Burnett’s wildness took over in the 5th. He gave up a leadoff double to Maicer Izturis and then an RBI single to Erick Aybar. Aybar stole second and Burnett then hit Chone Figgins. After getting Bobby Abreu out, he walked Torii Hunter to load the bases. Burnett threw a wild pitch, scoring Aybar and tying the game at 2-2. Again in the 6th, the Angels loaded the bases against Burnett, reliever Phil Coke (who also struck out Abreu), and Joba Chamberlain. But Chamberlain struck out Vladimir Guerrero on 3 pitches to get out of the inning without giving up a run. A leadoff walk by the 5th Yankees reliever Alfredo Aceves led to the Angels finally scoring another run and taking the lead in the 11th. Figgins delivered the bloop RBI double into left, giving the Angels a 3-2 lead. Aceves escaped further trouble by inducing an inning ending double play from Hunter. The lead was short-lived for the Angels as closer Brian Fuentes gave up a leadoff homerun to Alex Rodriguez in the bottom of the 11th, which just cleared the right field fence and just out of the reach of rightfielder Abreu. In the bottom of the 12th, Angels reliever Ervin Santana walked Teixeira to load the bases to face A-Rod. Make sense? Well it paid off, as Santana got A-Rod to pop up to end the inning. Both teams’ defenses weren’t exceptionally sharp as the Yankees committed 3 errors (2 by Cano) and the Angels committed 2. The Angels second error ended up costing the Angels. With runners on first and second in the bottom of the 13th and the clutch-hitting Melky Cabrera at the plate, Santana got Cabrera to hit a grounder towards second. Izturis gloved it and tried to throw the runner out at second (instead of the possible sure out at first). However, he threw it away, allowing Jerry Hairston to score…and the Yankees win.