• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Lofton drives in four; Indians club four homers in rout of Yankees

Oct 5, 2007 - 4:04 AM By Todd Krepop PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer CLEVELAND (Ticker) -- August 12 is nothing but a distant memory to the Cleveland Indians.

Kenny Lofton had four RBI and C.C. Sabathia got the outs when he needed to as the Indians defeated the New York Yankees, 12-3, in Game One of the American League Division Series on Thursday night.

Rookie Asdrubal Cabrera, Travis Hafner and Ryan Garko each hit solo home runs and Victor Martinez added a two-run blast as the Indians pounded New York starter Chien-Ming Wang and returned to the postseason with a bang.

"When somebody beats us up, you tip your cap to them and come back the next day," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "In a short series, you've got to battle every game. Five-game series' is certainly scary, no question."

The Indians host Game Two on Friday.

Alex Rodriguez's postseason misery along with the Yankees continued as the All-Star third baseman went 0-for-2 with two walks and has only four hits in his last 50 postseason at-bats.

"We didn't swing it like we wanted," Rodriguez said. "Sabathia really shut us down at the key point."

Meanwhile New York has had their own problems in the postseason, as New York has lost their last four games in the playoffs and haven't won a playoff series since 2004.

On August 12, the Yankees had just completed a three-game sweep of the Indians at Jacobs Field. New York won all six games between the two teams this season - outscoring the Tribe 49-17 - but the team they had just swept isn't the team New York is playing in the ALDS.

"The playoffs is a whole different atmosphere," Lofton said. "Now you start from scratch. You start from day one. And we look today as day one and we've got this win out."

"We have a lot of respect for (New York)," Martinez said. We just needed to make sure we played hard. We were ready to play today."

Since that point the Indians finished the season on a 31-13 tear - the best mark in baseball since August 13 - to return to the postseason for the first time since 2001.

"Anything can happen," Martinez said. "It is a brand new ballgame."

While much has been made about the Indians lack of postseason experience against the Yankees, it was the player with the most experience on the team leading the way.

Lofton, who was acquired at the end of July from the Texas Rangers, was a central figure on the Indians powerhouse teams of the 1990s. However, instead of scoring the runs, Lofton was driving them in on Thursday.

"It was kind of exciting," Lofton said. "It was just the fact that I was trying to tell these guys that in '95 how exciting the crowd was. I said if we start winning and doing things, the crowd is going to get excited. Now they are back in that mode again, so it's going to be fun."

"He stepped up for us tonight, driving in the runs," Indians third baseman Casey Blake said. "He has been doing this for years."

Lofton put the Indians in front 3-1 with a two-run, two-out single in the first.

"Kenny is a big-game player and he has given us a boost in the bottom of the lineup," Indians manager Eric Wedge said. "Certain players have that within him and Kenny most definitely does. He's done it his entire career. He has been a postseason player throughout."

It was a lead the Indians never relinquished as Sabathia pitched just well enough to get his second postseason victory.

Sabathia, who was making his first start against the Yankees since 2004, labored through five innings, throwing 114 pitches - 62 for strikes. Sabathia, who averaged 1.4 walks every nine innings during the regular season, walked six batters - the most since 2005 - but none scored.

"We were running up pitch counts on Sabathia," Torre said. "Got to give him credit, he bent but he didn't break."

He struck out five and allowed three runs on four hits. Sabathia and a trio of relievers held New York to just five hits, including just one from the Nos. two through six hitters in the lineup.

"I was trying to change speeds, making sure I had command of both sides of the plate," Sabathia said. "I think that was the biggest thing is just making sure I established it with (the Yankees) and having them think about it."

Despite the ugly numbers Sabathia (1-0) was able to minimize the damage, constantly working out of jams - none bigger than the fifth. The Yankees had just whittled the Indians three-run lead down to 4-3 after Bobby Abreu's RBI double.

With runners on second and third and one out, Sabathia intentionally walked Rodriguez to load the bases. The moved looked like it was going to backfire as Sabathia fell behind Jorge Posada 3-0, but the AL Cy Young candidate fought back and struck out Posada on a 96 miles-per-hour fastball.

"I got the green light on 3-and-0 and fouled it," Posada said. "Then I swung at pitches up in the zone and that's where C.C. is tough. The best pitch I got was 3-and-0 and it was tough to lay off the others."

"That at-bat changed the whole inning," Martinez said. "(Sabathia) didn't have his best stuff, but he didn't give up and he battled."

Sabathia then induced Hideki Matsui to popout to short on a 2-0 pitch to end the threat. As he walked off the mound, Sabathia double-pumped his fist.

"That was a big spot in the game, I felt," Sabathia said. "I was just thinking myself, 'Just try to make sure we end this inning with the lead.' I was able to work out of it. Posada helped me out a little bit by swinging at the 3-and-0 pitch."

The momentum carried over to the Indians half of the inning as they scored five runs in the fifth while sending nine men to the plate.

Cabrera led off the inning with a walk and two batters later, Martinez hit a two-run homer off of Yankees starter Wang (0-1) to extend the Indians lead to 6-3.

Cleveland tacked on another run on Lofton's two-out RBI single to chase Wang from the game.

The Yankees' 19-game winner allowed eight runs on nine hits in 4 2/3 innings. Wang also had trouble with home plate umpire Bruce Froemming's strike zone - giving up four walks. It was the second shortest outing of Wang's season and the two homers and walks tied a season high.

"(Wang) needs to be down, if he's not, he's flirting with danger," Torre said.