ALL SPORTS

He looked like a kid who couldn't stop playing with a shiny toy. But this was hardly flaunting a 7-2 lead on the Minnesota Twins, showing off a bullpen that is at the same time a regular-season revelation and a postseason mystery.

"What a great thing Joe did," Yankees general manager Brian Cashman says. "They experienced their first games. That's golden."


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They've been golden so far, this unlikely collection of relief pitchers charged with bridging the gap between the Yankees' high-priced starting rotation and closer deluxe Mariano Rivera.

Girardi marched them in from the bullpen, one after another, after CC Sabathia pitched into the seventh inning:

•Phil Hughes, a 23-year-old who was dropped from the rotation in June only to become what Girardi calls one of "two keys that turned our season around." (The other was the return from injury of third baseman Alex Rodriguez.)

•Phil Coke, 27, a lefty who went from 14⅔ innings of major league experience before this year to a Yankees rookie-record 72 appearances.

•Joba Chamberlain, who became a folk hero as a fireballing rookie at the end of the 2007 season and, just 24, since has been trying to earn a full-time spot in the rotation.

And then Rivera, the all-time postseason leader in just about everything that has to do with relievers, finished up.

This isn't 30-somethings Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton setting up, or Rivera in an apprentice role under John Wetteland in the 1996 World Series.

"It's definitely a different group," Rivera says. "Before we had all of these veterans with a lot of experience. Now we have these young boys with no experience, but they have the heart and the desire and the will to win, and that's the most important thing."

The next night, Chamberlain, Coke and Hughes pitched again in an extra-inning game. So did Rivera, plus a couple of playoff newbies.

Alfredo Aceves, a 26-year-old the Yankees enticed out of the Mexican League in 2008, got through the 10th inning despite allowing a hit and a walk.

David Robertson, 24, a 17th-round pick who led AL relievers in strikeouts per inning, pitched out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the 11th, allowing the Yankees to win on Mark Teixeira's walk-off homer.

"They get the bases loaded with nobody out," Girardi says. "We've got Robertson in, who has pitched to one hitter in playoff baseball (the hitter whose single loaded the bases) in his career, and he ends up getting out of it. The emotions are unbelievable."

That's the way it's going to be for the Yankees heading into the American League Championship Series against the Los Angeles Angels. The Yankees have no choice, haven't had many other options for more than half the season, really from the day in early June when Girardi called Hughes into his office.