Loving the longball

Going deep -- a lot -- a big part of this Yankees team

NEW YORK -- They are different, these Yankees. I mean, the Yankees always have been able to hit. This is a franchise that featured Murderers' Row. This is the team that brought you the Bronx Bombers. This is the franchise that made Reggie Jackson.

But these Yankees ... for a franchise that has prided itself in recent years for its strong pitching, its solid defense, its attention to the little things, these Yankees sure like the big moment.

It's enough to drive the Yankees' rivals over the wall.

"You'd think," said an appreciative Roger Clemens, "it would have to wear on you."

Tuesday night, it wore on the Anaheim Angels plenty. In Game 1 of their American League Division Series with the Angels, the Yankees pounded four home runs that accounted for all but one of the their runs in an 8-5 win.

Derek Jeter started things in the first inning with a solo shot. Jason Giambi hammered one out in the fourth. Rondell White smacked one the next inning. Then Bernie Williams, in a wild eighth inning, hit a three-run job to win it.

This is nothing new for this edition of the Yankees. The Yankees scored only 14 runs in the World Series last year. They hit only .183. So in the offseason they signed free-agent slugger Giambi, and then they got a terrific sophomore season from Alfonso Soriano.

All of a sudden -- well, over the course of a 103-win season, anyway -- the Yankees hit 223 home runs, second only in the team's storied longball history to the '61 team with Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle. The '02 Yankees hit more homers than anybody except the Rangers. Eight players hit 15 or more dingers apiece.

From top to bottom, this is one scary Yankees lineup.

"They've got big guys at every turn," said Angels manager Mike Scioscia. "You know, two out, nobody on, all of a sudden you turn around and there's four runs. That's what that ballclub over there can do. They're extremely talented. Extremely dangerous."

The Yankees scored more runs than anyone in baseball this year, which is really the measure of a good-hitting team. But there are problems with swinging for the fences so much. The Yankees set a franchise record with 1,171 strikeouts this season, more than any other team in the American League.

That has more than a few Yankees' backers a little nervous this postseason.

Still, Tuesday night, the Yankees were in their element, even as the pesky Angels kept tying the score before taking a 5-4 lead into the eighth. Anaheim pitchers could get only two strikeouts against the free-swinging Yanks. A ratio of 2:1, homers to strikeouts, will win a lot of games.

"As a starter, if I were to look at this lineup here," Clemens said, "you're always going to have one or two guys. But when you get three or four ... you're going to have to be coming in with it."

It was humid Tuesday night and Clemens, who gave up one of Troy Glaus' homers, said that had a lot to do with how well the ball carried at the Stadium. Still, the Yankees have proven that they can break out the big sticks at any time, anywhere.

Tuesday just happened to be the perfect time and the perfect place. The Yankees needed every one of the homers to hold off the Angels.

The Yanks aren't liable to keep up this barrage for the rest of the postseason. The pitching gets tougher in every round. The stakes get higher. Strikeouts just don't cut it in the World Series, not when runs are at such a premium. But it worked Tuesday.

Everything the Yankees do, however they do it, always seems to work.

John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com.

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