The Yankees won 103 games this season, cruised into
the playoffs, and were 7-0 against their ALDS opponent. Yet, the
pressure is squarely in Joe Girardi‘s dugout in Game 1 against the Twins.

That might seem counterintuitive, but the Yankees have things to prove as the postseason gets underway. CC Sabathia must show that pitching in October is not his kryptonite. Alex Rodriguez
has to snap out of a .159 batting average funk over his last 13 playoff
games. And the pinstripes, as a team, are tasked with displaying the
same domination that helped them clinch the toughest division in
baseball by an eight-game margin.

Winning in the postseason is
not the same as winning during the regular season. The stakes are
raised and the pressure builds and builds and builds. The Yankees,
suffering from their longest championship drought since 1996, are the
ones with something to lose. The youthful, upstart Twins across the
field barely made it to the party and have no expectations to fulfill.

Pitching
in the postseason is not the same as pitching during the regular
season. The series are short, putting significant emphasis on the
performance of the staff ace. Minnesota’s Game 1 starter will be rookie
left-hander Brian Duensing, who will surely be
nervous, but has nothing from his past to dwell upon. Sabathia, on the
other hand, has demons to exorcise, a reputation to shed, and a $161
million contract to live up to.

Momentum in the postseason can
make a much bigger difference than during the regular season. The brief
series reduce everything to a relatively tiny sample size — one in
which any red-hot Cinderella squad can knock off a Goliath-like
favorite if the latter endures even the shortest of slumps. The Twins
fit that bill perfectly: They’ve won 17 of their last 21 games, have
gelled extremely well as a team over that span, and are riding the
energy of a five-game winning streak capped by Tuesday night’s
thrilling walk-off win.

The pressure is on Sabathia and the Yankees to stop Ron Gardenhire‘s
Twinkies dead in their tracks. If CC throws a clunker and the
pinstripes unexpectedly lose Game 1, the pressure will shift right onto
A.J. Burnett‘s right shoulder and double in magnitude.
That’s a highly unlikely scenario — yet one that fans in the Bronx are
dreading nonetheless.

Joe Girardi‘s club is
certainly the better team, and most metrics — like New York’s 162 to
52 advantage over Minnesota in regular-season run differential — show
that. But what happened from April through early October means zilch
once the first pitch of the second season is thrown, and it’s up to the
pinstripes to once again establish themselves as the best of the eight
teams remaining.

The Yankees can certainly beat the Twins. In
fact, it’s perfectly realistic to expect them to advance to the ALCS in
a three-game cakewalk. But they must start off on the right foot.

In
the playoffs, if momentum builds in one dugout, undue pressure can take
over in the other. That’s the doomsday scenario for the Yankees — just
about the only one that could possibly lead them astray in this ALDS.

And that’s why the pressure is on the pinstripes to put their worries away with a definitive victory in Game 1.