Yankees-Indians Preview

It didn't take long for the Cleveland Indians to forget about their recent struggles against the New York Yankees.

After an offensive surge led to a decisive victory in their playoff opener, the Indians look for a commanding 2-0 lead as they continue their AL division series against the Yankees on Friday at Jacobs Field.

Making its first postseason appearance since 2001, Cleveland slugged its way to a 12-3 win on Thursday. The AL Central champion Indians didn't play like the club that lost all six matchups against the wild-card winning Yankees during the regular season.

"I think these guys understood that, that you know what happened in the past, it's a wash," said Cleveland outfielder Kenny Lofton. "Now you start from scratch. The playoffs is a whole different atmosphere."

Victor Martinez, Ryan Garko and Lofton each had three hits with Lofton driving in four runs, while Martinez and Garko hit two of the four homers for Cleveland. It was the most runs scored in a playoff game by the Indians since a 17-2 victory over Seattle in Game 3 of the 2001 ALDS.

New York, meanwhile, suffered its fourth straight postseason loss and will try to rebound from its most lopsided playoff defeat since falling 15-2 to Arizona in Game 6 of the 2001 World Series.

After Johnny Damon led off the game with a homer, the AL's top hitting team mustered four hits the rest of the night.

"Let's just get over it and lick our wounds and then we'll figure it out," Yankees manager Joe Torre said.

While much of Cleveland's lineup doesn't have a lot of playoff experience, they didn't have trouble figuring out New York's pitchers Thursday after being outscored 49-17 by the Yankees during the regular season.

"You don't have to have a whole lot of experience to understand that the game hasn't changed," the 40-year-old Lofton said. "That's what I've been talking to the guys about: Go out there and play baseball."

The Indians hope Fausto Carmona's stellar regular season will carry over when he makes his postseason debut on Friday. After going 1-10 as rookie in 2006, the 23-year-old Carmona went 19-8 with a 3.06 ERA and 5-0 with a 1.78 ERA in his last five starts.

The right-hander, though, was 0-1 with a 4.15 ERA in two starts against New York in 2007, but doesn't seem worried about facing the potent Yankees lineup.

"I know it's a big game, but that doesn't bother me," he told the Indians' official Web site. "I pitched against those guys before, and I'm not going to approach it like any different date."

While Carmona gets his first taste of the playoffs, New York's Andy Pettitte will make his 35th postseason start.

Pettitte went 15-9 with a 4.05 ERA this season and is 14-9 with a 4.08 ERA all-time in the postseason.

The left-hander, though, will be making his first playoff start for the Yankees since the 2003 World Series. Pettitte went 1-1 with a 4.26 ERA in four postseason starts for Houston in 2005.

Pettitte is 0-2 with a 7.94 ERA in two playoff games at Jacobs Field.

"I've been gone for three years out of the American League, so I haven't had a chance to face these guys a lot over the last couple years." Pettitte said. "Going to try to make good pitches, quality pitches and hopefully that will be good enough to give us a W."

Pettitte hopes for better offensive support than the Yankees' gave Chien-Ming Wang on Thursday. Robinson Cano also homered for New York, but likely AL MVP Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui went a combined 0-for-14.

Rodriguez is 4-for-43 (.093) with no RBIs in his last 13 postseason games. He is 1-for-7 against Carmona, but the hit was a home run.

Over its last seven division series, New York has won four of them after losing Game 1. The lost the other three series in which they won the opener.

"They're going to keep fighting," Torre said. "You have to play better than the other team. We need to do a better job."