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Yankees continue domination of Twins with series-opening victory

The Associated Press

NEW YORK — New postseason, same old story for the New York Yankees and Minnesota Twins.

DJ LeMahieu homered and drove in four runs, Gleyber Torres broke a tie with a two-run double and the Yankees extended their October mastery of Minnesota with a 10-4 victory Friday in their American League Division Series opener.

Aaron Judge made two diving catches in right field as the AL East champions handed Minnesota its major league-record 14th straight playoff defeat — 11 of them to the Yankees since 2004. The second grab thwarted a potential rally and left grateful reliever Zack Britton with both hands on his head to end the top of the seventh, when the Twins were still within striking distance.

“Huge,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He’s so good out there.”

Brett Gardner also went deep for the Bronx Bombers in a playoff matchup between teams that finished neck-and-neck this season for the most home runs in baseball history. Minnesota’s Bomba Squad socked 307, one more than New York as both clubs blew away the previous mark of 267 set by the Yankees last year.

But in the 14th postseason meeting of 100-win teams, it was more of the same Yankees dominance against the Twins — even though many of Minnesota’s players and coaches weren’t around for most of it.

Minnesota, the AL Central champion for the first time in nine years, was hurt by eight walks and hasn’t won a playoff game since Johan Santana beat Hall of Famer Mike Mussina 2-0 in the 2004 Division Series opener at Yankee Stadium.

Jorge Polanco, Nelson Cruz and Miguel Sano homered for Minnesota.

“We had some good swings, we had our moments,” manager Rocco Baldelli said after his first playoff game as bench boss. “Just by chance, there was no one on base when we popped a few balls over the fence.”

Rookie reliever Zack Littell took the loss after a brief and messy outing. With the score tied in the fifth, he walked Judge, threw a wild pitch and plunked Gardner.

Giancarlo Stanton drew the second of his three critical walks to load the bases, bringing up the 22-year-old Torres. He fought back from 0-2 to a full count against Tyler Duffey and pulled a sharp one-hopper that deflected off the glove of a diving Sano behind third base, giving New York a 5-3 lead.

LeMahieu launched his first postseason home run in the sixth, and Gardner also hit a solo drive off rookie Cody Stashak. LeMahieu made it 10-4 in the seventh when he laced a three-run double off Kyle Gibson for his third hit.

Game 2 is today, with the Yankees’ Masahiro Tanaka making his sixth postseason start against rookie right-hander Randy Dobnak.

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