American LeagueWhile the raucous crowd at Yankee Stadium taunted Pedro Martinez, Jon Lieber shut down the highest-scoring offense in the major leagues.
A No. 5 starter pitching against a three-time Cy Young pitching award winner, Lieber took a shutout into the eighth inning. John Olerud backed him with a two-run homer in the sixth off the tiring Martinez, and the Yankees beat the Red Sox 3-1 on Wednesday for a 2-0 lead in their American League championship series rematch.
PHOTO: AP
"These two games were huge, especially tonight," Yankees manager Joe Torre said.
PHOTO: EPA
After Orlando Cabrera singled leading off the third inning for Boston's first hit, Lieber retired 13 straight batters before David Ortiz singled in the seventh.
Lieber needed just 45 pitches to get through five innings -- Martinez threw 46 in just the first two innings. Lieber's biggest thorn was leadoff man Johnny Damon, who kept fouling balls off before lining to center in a 16-pitch at-bat with one out in the sixth.
PHOTO: AP
"I knew coming into this game what Pedro has done in the past in situations like this, so there was no room for error," Lieber said.
PHOTO: AP
After Trot Nixon singled leading off the eighth, Tom Gordon came in and allowed Jason Varitek's double and Cabrera's run batted in grounder.
Mariano Rivera entered with a runner on third and two outs in the eighth, just as he did on Tuesday night when he jetted back from a family funeral in Panama to preserve New York's opening win.
Rivera shattered Damon's bat on a foul ball, threw a called third strike past him to escape trouble, then finished for his second straight save and 32nd in postseason play.
After a day off, the series resumes tomorrow at Fenway Park, with Kevin Brown pitching for the Yankees against Bronson Arroyo. Boston headed home unsure of the status of ace Curt Schilling, whose ailing right ankle might prevent him from starting Game 5.
Martinez said he would pitch on short rest if needed.
"You feel good, but you don't feel too good," New York third baseman Alex Rodriguez said. "We feel like everybody wrote us off before this series started."
In last year's series, the teams split the first two games in New York. The pattern this year resembles 1999, when the Yankees won the first two games at home and took the series 4-1.
After the crowd chanted during his warmups, Martinez walked Derek Jeter on four pitches and threw a breaking ball out of the strike zone as Jeter stole second, prompting Cabrera, the shortstop, to come to the mound for a few words.
Martinez nicked Alex Rodriguez on the hand with the count 2-2, and Gary Sheffield singled to center on the next pitch, with Jeter scoring easily ahead of Damon's weak throw.
That was all the Yankees got then, with Martinez recovering to throw called third strikes past Hideki Matsui and Bernie Williams before retiring Jorge Posada on a grounder.
National League
Cardinals 10, Astros 7
In St. Louis, Albert Pujols homered early, Larry Walker delivered three key hits and St. Louis withstood four Houston shots to outlast the Astros in Game 1 of the National League championship series.
Slumping Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds also contributed, and winning pitcher Woody Williams even helped out with a big double for the league's top-hitting team.
Together, that was enough -- barely -- to withstand homers by Carlos Beltran, Lance Berkman, Jeff Kent and Mike Lamb.
And it was a significant victory: The last 11 teams to win the opener of the NLCS have gone on to reach the World Series.
No one predicted that pitchers would rule in this series, and it was an accurate call.
In an October when the ball is flying, the Cardinals and Astros took turns whacking shots all over Busch Stadium, with Walker finishing a home run shy of becoming the first player in postseason history to hit for the cycle.
Now, unheralded Pete Munro gets his chance to try to slow down the team that led the majors with 105 victories.
A guy who started the season in the minors with Minnesota, Munro will start Game 2 for Houston against 15-game winner Matt Morris on Thursday night.
For sure, Houston manager Phil Garner will find himself watching The Weather Channel overnight. The forecast is for showers, and the Astros would certainly welcome it. A rainout would allow them to bring back ace Roger Clemens in Game 2.
Edmonds' three-run double capped a six-run burst in the sixth that put St. Louis ahead 10-4. Chad Qualls wound up as the losing pitcher, in relief of Brandon Backe.
Jason Isringhausen got the final out for a save.
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