‘El Duque’ Stars for ‘Stripes

The bunting was hung with care at Yankee Stadium and there was a decidedly autumn chill in the air at this baseball cathedral Tuesday night. With such a setting for Game 1 of the American League Division Series between the Yankees and Texas Rangers, you’d almost expect some sort of Billy Chapel-esque pitching performance.

Almost.

While this is the South Bronx, not Hollywood, and Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez looks nothing like Kevin Costner, the Yankee starter pulled off his best impersonation of the actor’s latest fictional baseball hero.

Hernandez, with the help of a big night by Bernie Williams, pitched the Yankees to an 8-0 series-opening win by giving up only two hits in eight innings in front of 57,099.

“I’m happy with the way I pitched,” said Hernandez, who also struck out four batters while walking six. “The most important thing is the support I received from my team, offensively and defensively. I don’t feel like I won the game, [my teammates] won the game.”

Williams’ night, meanwhile, included a rally-killing sliding catch in the third inning and a three-for-five outing at the plate, including a three-run homer, and six RBIs. Yankee Manager Joe Torre showed a lot of trust in naming Hernandez his starter over five-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens.

“El Duque is very strong. I think he and Clemens could be the two strongest ones we have as far as the durability,” Torre said. “He’s a well-conditioned athlete and he threw a lot of pitches early because he didn’t want to give up anything.”

Hernandez started out a bit shaky but cruised the rest of the way.

The lone hits given up by Hernandez were a pair of shots to Ranger catcher Ivan Rodriguez.

In the first inning, Rodriguez doubled off the wall in right-center with one out. Hernandez then walked Rusty Greer before striking out Juan Gonzalez. Rafael Palmeiro then drew a walk to load the bases for Todd Zeile.

Hernandez got out of his first-inning jam by striking out Zeile.

The Yankees got on the board in the second inning.

With two out and Darryl Strawberry running from first base on the full-count pitch, Greer, playing left field, lost the ball in the lights and overran a slicing line drive by Ricky Ledee, which enabled Strawberry to scamper home.

The Rangers’ biggest threat came in the third.

Rodriguez got a broken-bat single up the middle with one out before Greer drew his second walk.

Gonzalez hit a shot to the gap in right-center that could have been extra bases were it not for Williams racing over from center field and making the sliding grab. Palmeiro followed with a towering shot to center that was caught by Williams on the warning track, ending the Texas threat.

Then Williams took over offensively.

In the fifth, Williams stroked a long, two-out double to straightaway center, burning Ranger center fielder Tom Goodwin and driving in Derek Jeter and Paul O’Neill.

Until that point, the hardest hit New York ball of the night was the screaming foul liner from Chuck Knoblauch’s bat to Yankee bench coach Don Zimmer’s noggin earlier in the inning.

The Yankee bats came to life again with two out in the sixth.

Williams took Ranger reliever Mike Venafro deep for the three-run bomb, his 10th career postseason homer, and also drove in Knoblauch with a single in the eighth inning.

Williams’ six RBIs gave him a record 17 in division series play, breaking O’Neill’s previous standard of 14.

“I just feel like we need to score a lot of runs throughout the game because they can hit with the best of them,” Williams said. “What happened tonight was an exception rather than the rule.”

Texas, an offensive juggernaut that led the league in hitting during the regular season, once again folded against the Yankees in the postseason.

The Rangers have scored only one run in their last 42 innings of division series play against the Yankees. It’s a trend they need to reverse to stand any chance in Game 2 Thursday night.

“We can, by luck, just pure luck, do more offensively than we’ve done here lately,” Texas Manager Johnny Oates said. “I don’t care, Yankee Stadium, Yellowstone Park, it doesn’t matter. We can score more runs than this by accident.”

And while Hernandez did not throw a perfect game a la Costner in the movie “For Love of the Game,” he did have a perfect game plan for the middle of the Ranger lineup. Four of the six walks issued by Hernandez came against Texas’ Nos. 3, 4 and 5 batters.