MLB

Only relief Yankees need comes from unyielding Sabathia

BALTIMORE ­— Here were the Orioles, with the Yankees exactly where they wanted them. Baltimore had dragged a close game into the late innings.

The Orioles have consistently won just this kind of contest all year, reached the playoffs for the first time in 15 years mainly because once a battle of the bullpens ensues, it becomes huge advantage Baltimore.

Except here was the thing: The Yankees were not cooperating. They were not going to the bullpen. They were sticking with their horse of a starter. They were entrusting Carsten Charles Sabathia to get them through Game 1, win the late innings on his left arm.

“That was enormous,” Alex Rodriguez said of Sabathia’s 8 2/3 innings in a 7-2 Yankees Division Series Game 1 triumph. “That was his best game of the season for so many reasons.”

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Right at the top was it re-established instantly in the postseason what existed between these teams during the season — no matter how persistently and gallantly the Orioles try, they cannot figure out how to get ahead of the Yankees. The clubs spent the last five weeks of the schedule neck-and-neck, but the Orioles never nudged ahead by itself in the AL East. Not even for a day. And now the Yankees are in front again, this time in the Division Series.

Don’t let the final score of Game 1 fool you. The Yankees scored five runs in the ninth to break a tie. However, it was only a tie due to the work of Sabathia for eight innings — particularly in the eighth.

“This one was a nail-biter, one of those you sit on the edge of your seat the whole game,” Brian Cashman said. “But CC never gave in.”

The Yankees had played squander ball on offense yet again, this time mixing dubious baserunning with ineffective hitting with men on base. Ichiro Suzuki was thrown out trying to steal third with no out in the first and the Yanks already up 1-0. Mark Teixeira tied the score 2-2 in the fourth with a drive off the right-field wall, but was thrown out by a good distance at second trying to stretch , though the play was right in front of him.

The score was 2-2 going to the bottom of the eighth and J.J. Hardy lashed a leadoff double into right-field corner. The go-ahead run for the game and the series was now 180 feet away with the 3-4-5 in Baltimore’s lineup due up. The 47,841 fans at Camden Yards, enjoying the first playoff game in this building since 1997, were in an orange-and-black frenzy of noise and expectation.

Sabathia was unflappable, refusing to surrender to the moment or the heart of the Orioles lineup. Retiring Adam Jones without putting a second man on or letting Hardy reach third was the key to the inning. He worked Jones hard inside, got to 2-2 and, Russell Martin said, “threw his best slider of the game” to get a strikeout.

Joe Girardi came out to ask Sabathia if he wanted to walk Matt Wieters to set up a double play. But Mark Reynolds was on deck, and Sabathia thought the slugger was swinging too well to force a situation where he had to throw strikes because there was first and second. So he went after Wieters and popped him up. Sabathia then induced Reynolds to ground to short, shooting his left arm up in triumph as the inning ended.

“Normally, I try not to show a lot of emotion,” Sabathia said. “But that was big.”

Martin led off the ninth with a homer against Jim Johnson and the floodgates were open for five runs.

Girardi asked Sabathia, “You good?”

“I’m good,” the lefty responded, and so he went out with 110 pitches and came within one strike of the Yankees’ first playoff complete game since Roger Clemens’ one-hit, 15-strikeout gem against A-Rod’s Mariners in Game 4 of the 2000 ALCS. Lew Ford, however, doubled and Sabathia was lifted.

Nevertheless, he had carried over his personal late-season success to the playoffs, re-established strong postseason work after dubious performances in 2010 and 2011 and further rested his bullpen for those relief battles to come. Sabathia worked hard inside with his fastball, had a deceptive change and lived at the bottom of the strike zone, looking like the ace he was in a tour-de-force effort during the Yankees’ 2009 postseason title run.

Sabathia was his own setup man yesterday, refusing to let Baltimore win at its pen game. Instead, backed by his excellence, the Yankees were again in a familiar position in 2012: ahead of the Orioles.

joel.sherman@nypost.com