NEW YORK (AP) – If every postseason game were an opener, the Metrodome would be filled with World Series banners.

Eight times in a row, Minnesota has won the first game of a playoff. And for the fourth straight series, the Twins lost Game 2.

Brad Radke wasn’t sharp, still the Twins became the first team to overcome a lead against Mariano Rivera in the postseason at Yankee Stadium. They even went ahead in the 12th on Torii Hunter’s two-out homer.

Not enough.

This time, the end was oh-so-cruel.

Alex Rodriguez hit an RBI double in the bottom half off Joe Nathan on the closer’s 49th pitch, and Hideki Matsui hit a sacrifice fly off J.C. Romero, giving New York a 7-6 win and sending the best-of-five series back to Minneapolis tied 1-all.

Sound familiar?

Sure is. Last year, Radke started Game 2 and Minnesota also lost.

“We can’t be satisfied with one win,” Hunter had said Wednesday afternoon. “We had guys jumping up and down last year after that first game, even myself, I was happy that we won that first game. I think that we kind of got laid back. We thought we could win it in three, and these guys came back with a vengence.”

Minnesota, which lost last year’s series in four games, headed home knowing it plays best before the Homer Hanky-waving fans in the Metrodome, where the Twins were 49-32, the No. 3 record in the AL behind the Yankees and Red Sox.

Radke lost his third straight postseason start, and Minnesota’s offense couldn’t handle Jon Lieber’s pitch-a-second delivery – OK, not every second, but it wasn’t a whole lot more. The first five innings, which sometimes in the postseason last long as a New York-Minneapolis flight, zipped by in 1 hour, 14 minutes.

Radke failed to hold 1-0 and 3-1 leads as New York batters attacked him aggressively – the Yankees had 10 one-pitch at-bats against him. A first-inning double by Justin Morneau, a pair of second-inning runs on Michael Cuddyer’s RBI single and Henry Blanco’s sacrifice fly left Minnesota trailing 5-3 in the eighth.

Then, after Morneau’s RBI single and Corey Koskie’s opposite-field, run-scoring double tied it, Rincon extended the game into extra innings only to have Nathan lose it in the 12th.