NEW YORK — Alex Rodriguez did not deliver the moonshot for the Yankees, not on a night he opened the playoffs as a tense and tight figure, a familiar monument to October angst.

In his first two at-bats against the Twins’ Brian Duensing, a son of the Nebraska corn who never had visited the big city, Rodriguez was the one who looked like an accidental tourist.
Out was Sunday’s comic-book hero who smashed home seven runs in a single bound, breaking the 30-homer, 100-RBI barrier for the 13th time. In was the leaning and lunging lightweight forever turning postseason games into a steady diet of kryptonite.
With two down in the first, Derek Jeter on second and Duensing throwing him everything but the Ephus pitch, A-Rod flied weakly to right.
With two down in the third, Mark Teixeira on first, A-Rod loosed a wretched 2-2 cut and made it 0-for-29 in the postseason with men on base, stranding 40 runners in all.
If Jeter’s homer already hadn’t evened the score and sated the crowd, Rodriguez would’ve been treated about as warmly as Carl Pavano was during opening introductions.
But something funny happened on the way to hell and back. Rodriguez settled into Game 1 of the division series, cleared his narrowing throat and delivered a couple of RBI singles that proved more hopeful than Jeter’s homer, Hideki Matsui’s homer and Nick Swisher’s double.
The Yankees won by a 7-2 count, beating the Twins for the eighth time in eight attempts this year. Back from the depths of his steroids confession and hip surgery, Rodriguez was among the more conspicuous winners in a clubhouse full of them.
The first single knocked in Jeter, giving A-Rod his first hit with a runner in scoring position since Game 2 of the 2004 ALDS against these very Twins. When Jeter crossed the plate, he attempted to make eye contact with Rodriguez, who was too busy bending over and fixing his pants.
“It felt good to contribute,” A-Rod would say, “and to get that hit out of the way.”
The second single nearly cleared the right field wall in the seventh, and again knocked in Jeter, who looked about as tight in his return to the playoffs as a child in a sandbox.
“You can’t say enough about our captain,” Rodriguez said. The Jeter homer, A-Rod added, “gave us a lot of confidence.”
So did Rodriguez’s willingness to think and play small.
He entered the playoffs a resurgent slugger after hitting, in his words, “rock bottom this spring.” While recovering from his surgery in Colorado, and while nursing the psychological wounds left by his forced admission of steroid use, Rodriguez worried he wouldn’t play a single game in 2009.
“I think my life and my career was at a crossroad,” he said, “and I was either going to stay at the bottom or I was going to bounce back.”
Rodriguez promised to cut the fat from his drama-queen life. He ended a broken marriage, stopped listening to his ever-growing circle of advisers and reembraced longtime friend Gui Socarras, said to be a positive influence.
A-Rod also found comfort in the arms of Kate Hudson. One member of the immediate Yankee family said he was so impressed with Hudson’s impact on Rodriguez that he privately hoped the third baseman would marry her.
For now, A-Rod needs a ring of a different kind. A championship ring. He knew he wouldn’t win one without improving his numbers from playoff opportunities lost.
“There’s no question they haven’t been real good,” Rodriguez said.
They were good enough Wednesday night. So the Yankees had a lot of fun in Game 1, none more than the frien-emies at third and short.
In a different lifetime, a more complicated time for Jeter and A-Rod, the shortstop stared daggers at his former best friend after a pop-up fell between them, prompting Joe Torre to reprimand them in the clubhouse.
But all these games and years later, the dynamics have changed. After Rodriguez gathered in a high pop against the Twins, Jeter walked over and gave him some good-natured grief. A-Rod playfully pushed him back toward short, the captain laughed and the Yankees went merrily about their Game 1 way.
Rodriguez kept crediting Jeter and CC Sabathia for this first postseason victory in the new Yankee Stadium. He kept talking about “doing the little things” and allowing other people to help his cause the way he allowed Matsui to help him with that two-run shot.
“I have to swing at strikes,” A-Rod said, “and trust all my teammates. That’s important.”
Rodriguez needs to share the burden, for he’s already proven he can’t handle it alone.
Wednesday night he overcame his alarming start and took the first baby steps toward fulfilling other people’s prophecies. Joe Girardi had predicted a profitable postseason for a cleanup man in dire need, and didn’t hesitate when asked why.
“I think how relaxed he is,” the manager said. “I think the importance about playing in October is being relaxed. Alex has had a lot of fun this year.
“I hear him laughing every day, and it’s laughing loud. ... I just believe he’s poised to have a good postseason run. I can’t tell you exactly what’s going to happen, but he’s in a great frame of mind.”
Reggie Jackson, A-Rod’s October alter ego, delivered the same pregame forecast.
“Alex is just more comfortable with who he is, in his own skin,” Jackson said. “It’s all over him. I just feel that he’s not the same guy anymore, and that this Alex Rodriguez is going to have a great month.
“If somebody said he’s going to hit eight home runs in the postseason, you’d bet against it, but you wouldn’t be shocked if he pulled it off. If Alex hits a fly ball it’s a homer, here or anywhere.”
Rodriguez didn’t need a homer in Game 1. He just needed a reason to believe this fall will be different from those of the recent past.
In that context, his two two-out singles meant more than any ball he might’ve landed on the moon.