Yankees fans, you simply must fight the urge to panic. You must! Yes last night was bad; no one wanted to see the Yanks open the World Series with a 6-1 loss to the defending World Champions. Certainly there’s cause for alarm, but it was one game. There are at least three left, and probably more than four or five to go in this particular series.

Anyone who thought the Yankees offense was simply going to own and destroy Cliff Lee last night were kidding themselves. The match up between Lee and Sabathia was always going to be a pitcher’s duel, and in fact that’s exactly what it was. The final score is misleading in a variety of ways, but the most important way is that C.C. Sabathia was not lit up, he was not dominated, he surrendered two runs in seven innings of work. Against anyone else, that’s probably good enough to win the series opener. Cliff Lee was simply better.

In all, Cliff Lee has done exactly what he was brought to Philadelphia to. While he was good in the regular season for the Phils, he’s been dominant in the post season. Actually, dominant doesn’t really cover it, he’s been otherworldly. Since the playoffs began, Lee has now thrown 33 innings, has allowed just 23 base runners (20 hits, and just 3 walks) and only two (yes you’re reading that right) earned runs. Cliff posted his second complete game last night, and has struck out 30. Last night was the second straight outing in which he struck out 10 hitters, and impressive feat considering that before his last two starts Lee hasn’t struck out over nine batters in a game since August 19^th. Last night’s game lowered Lee’s earned run average in the post-season to a miniscule 0.54.

Sabathia, who has had a fantastic post season himself, was far from lights out, but he was far from extremely hittable either. It was the Yankees bullpen that truly let the team down last night. If New York wants to bounce back, it will need to get better performances out of its middle relief than we saw in the opener.

Brian Bruney, who was activated for the World Series, and has seen no game action since the regular season ended, was unsurprisingly rusty. His three hits and two earned runs in while only being able to record one out threw dirt on a coffin that was already in the ground. The game wasn’t out of hand until the pen went to “work”. But Bruney at least has the built in excuse of not having appeared in a game in over three weeks. Phil Hughes on the other hand, has been on the playoff roster since the beginning, and has struggled mightily. After blowing a 6-5 lead in the ALCS, Hughes followed it up by walking two, and allowing two earned runs without recording a single out. It was his runners that took the game from a 2 to 0 deficit to 4 to 0 and essentially putting the game out of reach for a struggling offense.

And then there’s the offense. A squad that lead all other teams in batting average, runs scored, and home runs was held to one run on six hits. The Yankees couldn’t even score with the benefit of a hit. They scored when Mark Teixera (who is continuing a horrid post season at the plate) grounded into a fielder’s choice.

With all that said, with the perfect storm of things that went wrong last night, it was still one game. Pedro Martinez takes the hill for the Phillies tonight; A.J. Burnett for the Yankees. And while people in Gotham seem to think that last night was the beginning of the end, a win tonight just makes it a new beginning.

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