Pettitte puts Twins in their place

Andy Pettitte and the defending World Series champions stumbled through September and landed in the AL wild-card spot.

As the Minnesota Twins can attest, the New York Yankees are hardly an underdog in October.

Pushing the home-field advantage back in Minnesota’s face, Pettitte turned in a vintage postseason performance with seven smooth innings and Lance Berkman had two big hits for New York in a 5-2 victory over the Twins on Thursday evening at Minneapolis for a 2-0 lead in their best-of-five division series.

“Andy, when he gets in big situations, he knows how to handle it,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “He’s not going to try to make the perfect pitch. He’s going to stay aggressive and just try to do what he does.”

Berkman hit a go-ahead home run in the fifth and a tiebreaking double in the seventh against Twins starter Carl Pavano.

Game 3 is Saturday at New York.

Rangers 6, Rays 0: At St. Petersburg, Fla., Michael Young hit a three-run homer one pitch after keeping his at-bat alive with a disputed check-swing, helping C.J. Wilson and AL West champion Texas beat Tampa Bay for a 2-0 lead in their division series.

“I just think that we’ve had a great mentality these first two games,” Young said. “We’re not really thinking about some huge, grand picture here. We empty the bank for the game we’re playing that day.”

Wilson was impressive, allowing two hits in 6 2/3 innings. He gave up a single to leadoff man Jason Bartlett to start the game, then limited the Rays to just three baserunners on an error, a walk and a hit batter over the next five innings.

Ian Kinsler also homered for the Rangers, who host Game 3 on Saturday.

Giants 1, Braves 0: Tim Lincecum pitched a two-hitter and struck out 14 in a dominating postseason debut, and San Francisco scored its only run after a questionable umpiring call to beat visiting Atlanta in Game 1 of their NL division series.

Cody Ross singled in the only run Lincecum needed in the fourth after Buster Posey was called safe by umpire Paul Emmel on a steal of second.

It was the first career steal for Posey, even though he appeared to be tagged out by Brooks Conrad on the play.

San Francisco hosts Game 2 tonight.