MLB

Yankees find way to silence Camden faithful

HAVING A GOOD TIME! Mark Teixeira (left to right), Robinson Cano, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Nick Swisher celebrate after the Yankees’ 7-2 victory over the Orioles in Game 1 of the ALDS last night in Baltimore. (N.Y. Post: Charles Wenzelberg)

BALTIMORE — You could sense the pixie dust had maybe reached its expiration date in the bottom of the eighth, when J.J. Hardy led off lacing a line drive into the right-field corner and cruised into second base, the foundation at 20-year-old Camden Yards starting to shimmy and shake.

There were 47,841 in the house, largest crowd of the year at Oriole Park, and they weren’t just hopeful to see the Orioles push across the go-ahead run in a 2-2 tie, they were expecting it. That’s confidence borne out of winning an endless string of close games across 162, surviving an endless string of one-run sweatboxes.

“All year long,” Orioles manager Buck Showalter would say, “we’ve seemed to find a way.”

But a funny thing happened on the way to the all-night party planned in the heart of the Inner Harbor: The Yankees called the cops who shut the taps and battered the kegs. This isn’t September, and these aren’t the Blue Jays. CC Sabathia had the tying run in back of him, the Orioles’ 3-4-5 hitters in front of him, a rabid orange-and-black gathering all around him.

And the way these short series go maybe the Yankees’ season in his left hand.

“That’s when it’s good to have a man like CC on your side,” Robinson Cano said. “That’s when you need to say, ‘This is going to be our game. This is going to be our night.’ ”

Sabathia escaped the jam thanks to a strikeout, a weak pop-up and a weaker ground ball. And it was here that those 47,841 seemed to understand, all together, all at once: This wasn’t going to end well for the local nine.

And it didn’t end well for the local nine. Russell Martin started the carnage by taking one of Baltimore closer Jim Johnson’s patented “bowling ball” pitches and made it look like a Wiffle Ball, breaking the tie, loosening bashful Yankees bats that wouldn’t stop bashing until the score was 7-2 and the stadium reverted to something out of September 2010 or August 2007 or October 2005: empty, quiet, beaten.

“We certainly had our chances,” Showalter said, and he would go on to talk about how proud he was of his team, how wonderful Johnson was as a pitcher and as a teammate and as a man. And as nice as it was hearing how much the manager enjoys his players it almost sounded like the first draft of his end-of-the-season address.

Which you could understand, actually. For as wary as a lot of the Yankees may have been about this year’s unique five-game formula of playing two on the road and then three back at the Stadium, a night like this proves why it isn’t such a bad thing if you aren’t afraid to take your show out of town at all. Slowly, when this 7-2 Yankees victory was over, two things dawned on both teams:

1) Not only do the Orioles now have to win three out of four against a better team, 2) they will have to win at least two of those games in The Bronx. That’s some heavy lifting ahead for the Charm City Charmers.

The locals had to wait 15 years to see a playoff baseball game, and then an extra 2 1/2 hours on top of that thanks to a stubborn late-afternoon rainstorm, and two batters into the game it was already 1-0. Sabathia surrendered two runs in the third and nearly allowed more in the fifth, but he was as brilliant as he has been as a Yankee, living at the bottom of the strike zone, putting the ball precisely where he wanted it.

“A well-pitched game on both sides,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said, “and we were fortunate to get to a very good closer tonight. Our guys put some good at-bats on him, but it was an outstanding game.”

For his guys, at least, it was. Baltimore was late to embracing this team and this story but it was there last night, belief giving way to expectation. Expectation finally kneecapped by reality. The magic may not have vanished completely, not yet. But they may want to put out an APB for it. And soon.