"The Mets ' and Yankees ' players and managers can tell you that the Subway Series is just another series in a long season, that these games hold as much weight as any others. Then you watch the way they go after them, see their actions speak more to how they truly feel.

Both New York teams arrived Friday night at Citi Field playing the best baseball of their respective seasons and with a load of momentum - the Yanks' Mark Teixeira called it "the immovable object versus the unstoppable force" - and each fought to sustain it until the Yankees finally emerged with a 5-1 victory before a sellout crowd of 42,020, the largest ever to see a game at Citi.

The Yankees' Joe Girardi managed it like a playoff game. Even though Ivan Nova had thrown five innings of one-run ball, Girardi sent Jorge Posada to pinch-hit as he went for the kill in the sixth. He had the slugging Bombers bunt twice in an inning. And he used six relievers to get four scoreless innings, the last two outs recorded by closer Mariano Rivera in a non-save situation."