By Tom Singer / MLB.com

Andy Pettitte held the Twins to one run on four hits to pick up the win in Game 2. (Julie Jacobson/AP)

Fellow Texan Roger Clemens now will try to follow.

Pettitte spent the second half of the season as New York's stopper, and he reenacted that role for the postseason with a dominant performance Thursday night.

Pettitte's seven innings of four-hit, 10-strikeout pitching bought just enough time for the dormant Bombers offense to stir alive for a 4-1 win over the Twins.

With Mariano Rivera already warming up for a possible eighth-inning entrance, the Yankees broke through for three runs in the bottom of the seventh.

The Yankees did so when they stopped trying to be the Bombers. Alfonso Soriano and Jason Giambi, the two loudest thumpers who combined for 79 home runs during the regular season, drove in the runs with ground-ball singles.

Rivera protected Pettitte's win with his first two-inning save since July 11.

Friday's break in the schedule allowed manager Joe Torre to get six outs from Rivera, and still have him available for Game 3.

Until the singles by Soriano and Giambi, the Yankees had been 2-for-16 batting with men in scoring position in the ALDS.

New York's breakthrough shifts attention to the Twins' own offensive woes. Minnesota has totaled only 12 hits in the first two games.

In Sunday's Game 4, Minnesota's Game 1 starter Johan Santana will return face David Wells.

Santana was forced out of Tuesday's game after four shutout innings by cramps in his right leg.

Wells, tentative in Torre's original ALDS rotation, was officially given the assignment following Thursday's game.

Tom Singer is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to approval by Major League Baseball or its clubs.