INQUIRER Sports

NEW YORK – Chase Utley smashed two solo home runs and Cliff Lee baffled New York batters to give defending champion Philadelphia a 6-1 victory over the Yankees in Wednesday's opening game of the World Series.

Lee silenced the sport's highest-scoring and most prolific homer-bashing batters, the 31-year-old American southpaw striking out 10 while scattering six hits over nine innings on a cold and breezy night at the new Yankee Stadium.

Utley blasted homers over the left-field wall in the third and sixth innings off Yankees left-handed starter C.C. Sabathia, Utley reaching base in a record 26th consecutive playoff game.

Raul Ibanez added a two-run single in the eighth while Shane Victorino and Ryan Howard drove in runs in the ninth to help power the Phillies to a 1-0 lead in Major League Baseball's best-of-seven championship final.

The Yankees, with baseball's richest payroll at 201 million dollars, seek a 27th World Series crown but their first since 2000. The Phillies could become the first National League club since 1976 to win back-to-back titles.

While New York can equalize in game two here on Thursday, the winner of game one has gone on to win the World Series in 11 of the past 12 years.

Lee improved to 3-0 in the playoffs with only two runs allowed in 32 1/3 innings to win a showdown of southpaw stars against Sabathia, each a former American League Pitcher of the Year while playing for Cleveland.

Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez, who paced New York with 39 and 30 homers respectively, each struck out twice in the first four innings. Both went down in the fourth along with Jorge Posada as Lee struck out the side.

Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter doubled in the third and singled in the sixth but could not advance in either inning, Teixeira grounding into a fielder's choice to snuff out New York hopes in the latter opportunity.

In the eighth inning, Lee fielded a hard-hit grounder behind his back then easily made the throw out to first, shrugging his shoulders as if it the remarkable play was nothing special while infielders laughed.

The Yankees led the league with 51 comeback victories this year and finally cracked Lee in the ninth when Jeter singled, took second on a Johnny Damon single and scored on a throwing error by Utley on Teixeira fielder's choice.

But Lee struck out Rodriguez for the third time to end his 11-game playoff hit streak, four shy of the all-time record, and struck out Jorge Posada to end the game.

Sabathia, who shared the regular-season major league lead with 19 triumphs, had been 3-0 in the playoffs and while he struck out six and allowed just four hits, two of them were Utley's homer blasts.

Utley smacked a three-ball, two-strike pitch over the right-field wall with two outs in the third to give the Phillies a 1-0 lead. It was the first homer surrendered by Sabathia to a left-hander in 121 2/3 innings at Yankee Stadium.

Sabathia retired the next eight Phillies batters but then tossed another home-run ball to Utley in the sixth inning, a no-ball, two-strike offering being deposited in the right-field grandstands to give Philadelphia a 2-0 edge.

By reaching base in a 26th consecutive playoff game, Utley broke the record he shared with Baltimore's Boog Powell, whose streak lasted from 1966 to 1971.

Sabathia joined Dock Ellis from 1976 and Al Downing from 1963 and 1964 as the only black pitchers for the Yankees in a record 40 World Series trips over 88 years, but could not become the first of them to win in the Series.

Sabathia escaped a bases-loaded situation in the first inning by inducing a ground out from Ibanez, who came to the plate with the bases loaded again in the eighth thanks to three walks by relievers.

This time, Ibanez singled to right off reliever David Robertson to bring in two runs, doubling the Phillies' lead.

Victorino singled in a run in the ninth and Howard doubled home another but Victorino was thrown out at home plate to end the inning.