NEW YORK -- As expected, ALDS Game 1 between the New York Yankees and Minnesota Twins was a high-scoring, home run-filled affair. The two highest scoring teams in baseball combined for 14 runs and five home runs Friday night (NYY 10, MIN 4).

Beyond hitting homers, the Yankees and Twins also have something else in common: really good bullpens. New York's vaunted relief crew is arguably the best in baseball. Very quietly though, Minnesota's bullpen posted 7.3 WAR during the regular season, right behind the Yankees (7.4 WAR) in 91 fewer innings.

"We have an excellent bullpen. We have a bullpen that we're going to rely on. We're going to call upon them in a lot of different situations," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said earlier this week. "... I would anticipate our bullpen being a very important part of this series and everything that we see from this point on."

It didn't take long for Game 1 to turn into a battle of the bullpens after starting pitchers Jose Berrios (four innings) and James Paxton (4 2/3 innings) surrendered three runs each. It was a 3-3 game after just four innings and the game was in the hands of the relievers. Frankly, neither relief unit was lights out. New York's was quite a bit better though.

BULLPEN UNITIPHRERBBKHR

Minnesota relievers

4

4

7

7

5

5

2

N.Y. Yankees relievers

4 1/3

3

1

1

4

5

1

Zack Littell, a former Yankees prospect, started the fifth for Minnesota and was very wild. He came in and walked a batter, threw a wild pitch, and then hit Brett Gardner to put two runners on base. Tyler Duffey replaced him and eventually allowed the go-ahead two-run double to Gleyber Torres. Cody Stashak then allowed insurance solo homers to DJ LeMahieu and Gardner in the sixth.

It was LeMahieu who officially broke the game open with a bases-clearing double against starter-turned-reliever Kyle Gibson in the seventh inning.

"These are guys we have leaned on heavily throughout the year," Baldelli said following Game 1. "We're going to continue to lean on them heavily. We're going to see them back out there and throwing in important situations ... Our guys are resilient. Our guys have had outings here and there over the course of the year that didn't go as planned, and they come right back."

Yankees manager Aaron Boone caught a lot of grief for not being aggressive enough with his bullpen last postseason. He silenced those critics in Game 1. Boone used righty specialist Adam Ottavino to match up with Nelson Cruz in the fifth inning and asked Tommy Kahnle to get two outs spanning the fifth and sixth. Chad Green also recorded two outs.

"I just think there were some spots that I felt good about certain guys in," Boone said following Game 1. "So I just felt like there were certain times in the game that matchups we wanted to try to slam the door, and fortunately, the offense was able to add on to allow us to change things up a little bit and keep (Zack Britton) to an inning. So it just kind of unfolded that way for us."

Before LeMahieu's three-run double, Boone was also prepared to use Britton for two innings, something he never asked the reliever to do in the regular season. Heck, only once did Britton record even four outs in an appearance. Britton pitched the seventh inning with the Yankees up 7-4 and would've pitched the eighth if not for LeMahieu's double. Instead, Boone called on J.A. Happ.

"We were prepared to be aggressive there, and we were prepared to try to split up the seventh, eighth, and ninth with Britton and (Aroldis Chapman) in that spot," Boone said. "But once we got the lead leverage, we decided to go with J.A. there for an inning. It was good to see him get in the game like that where, obviously, a different role for him, and I thought threw the ball really well."

Britton added: "I don't want to give away some strategy, but we have an idea of how we want to use (everyone) depending on the game situation. I was ready to go ... I was going out for the eighth (before we broke the game open)."

In a weird way, using the bullpen so aggressively means the Yankees will have all their key late-inning relievers available for Game 2 on Saturday. No one had an extended outing -- the well-rested Chapman (4 1/3 innings since Aug. 31) led the way with 18 pitches in the ninth. In total, the 4 1/3-inning workload was spread across six relievers. That leaves the bullpen in pretty good shape. 

"The other good thing about tonight is I feel like all of our guys are back in play for tomorrow, and we're not pushing them necessarily," Boone added.

As for the Twins, their bullpen is in fine shape for Game 2, but for all the wrong reasons. Closer Taylor Rogers along with setup men Sergio Romo and Trevor May did not pitch in Game 1. Duffey only threw 25 pitches. Baldelli's late-inning relievers will be rested for Saturday. My guess is he'd trade a rested bullpen for a Game 1 win, but that's the way things went. 

"We could run them out there, probably still reasonably late in the game, but maybe push them up a little bit," Baldelli said when asked about using Romo and Rogers more aggressively. "Again, with the five innings we're going to cover out of the bullpen tonight, we could have seen -- we could have ended up seeing something like that. So that is definitely possible."

In all likelihood, the team that wins the ALDS will be the one that hits the most home runs and gets the best bullpen work. The Twins out-homered the Yankees, 3-2, in Game 1, but New York had the better relief work from the bullpen. Now the Yankees now only need to win two of their next four games to advance to the ALCS.