The kids are doing all the heavy lifting for Yankees

NEW YORK -- There’s only one series in the books -- granted. But change isn’t just blowing through Yankee Stadium. It’s moving at the sort of warp speed that straightens out those flags rimming the stadium. Three games into the new season, it feels as if the kids are carrying the Yankees. Or at least making all the plays you remember.

First Melky Cabrera was flashing leather and hitting a home run, Chien-Ming Wang’s sinker was thudding off bats and Joba Chamberlain had a typically electric inning of relief work to knock off Toronto in Tuesday’s season opener. Then 21-year-old Phil Hughes scattered four hits in six innings in his 2008 debut last night as the Yankees -- you might want to sit down before you read this -- fueled their winning rally in the bottom of the eighth with back-to-back sacrifice bunts. Bunts!

If that ever happened in Joe Torre’s tenure, it was because someone missed a sign.

Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi wasn’t kidding the other night when he laughed softly and said, “There’s going to be a lot different here this year.”

“Twenty-one,” Johnny Damon said Thursday night, looking across the locker room at Hughes. “To be twenty-one again, huh?” Damon laughed, then sighed.

Everyone has known for weeks these changes were coming. How they might work out was the mystery. The Yankees are relying heavily on Hughes, Chamberlain and Friday’s young starter, Ian Kennedy, none of whom are more than 23. It’s also been clear Manager Joe Girardi will be a dramatic stylistic departure from Torre. It wasn’t outlandish to expect Cabrera, still only 23 years old, to be better and smarter this season, which is still only his second as an everyday player.

But look at this: In the Yankees’ two wins, Cabrera contributed two spectacular catches and a home run in the season opener, then had the leadoff hit in the bottom of the eighth Thursday night and scored the go-ahead run in the Yankees’ 3-2 win.

“You’ve got to be able to win games like this,” Girardi said.

Unlike Chamberlain -- who seethes and stalks around and celebrates wildly on the mound -- Hughes’ temperature never seems to rise above a simmer. He started this season knowing the Yankees were counting on him, that unless he does something to erase it, he’ll be forever known as the kid the Yankees refused to trade for the Great Santana. Yet Hughes’ reactions to that burden was the same as his low-key appraisal of his solid start Thursday night. He was as matter-of-fact as a 15-year veteran.

“It was nice,” Hughes shrugged. “I kept us in the game. We won.”

It was more than a “nice” outing, even if Hughes left with a no-decision and the score tied at 2. In the fourth, especially, Hughes flashed many of the traits that made the Yankees so determined to hang onto him. After no-hitting the Blue Jays through three innings, David Eckstein touched him for a bloop double to lead off the fourth. Then Alex Rios stroked an RBI single, stole second and went to third when Jose Molina’s throw skittered by Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano into center field.

It was the first jam Hughes faced and his response was eye-catching: He struck out Blue Jays cleanup hitter Vernon Wells, then he caught Jays slugger Frank Thomas looking on a 3-and-2 pitch to strand Rios at third. (Thomas was so incensed he was ejected for arguing the call with plate ump Bill Martin.)

It was Hughes’ best moment in the game, if not his only one. Even by the first inning, when he struck out the second and third batters he faced, the fans had begun a new chant for him -- a long, deeply drawn-out shout of “Huuuuughes.”

Hughes claimed to be too lost in concentration to notice, but added, “If they did that, that’s cool.”

It was the only time Hughes sounded like a kid all night. But it underscored how all of a sudden time is flying around here. Was it really just last season that The Boss was still in charge, Torre was parked in his usual corner of the dugout and Roger Clemens was being introduced in the owner’s box, then waving like some pope at the adoring minions cheering the surprise announcement of his return?

Hughes was still in the minors then. Few in New York had ever heard of Chamberlain, or noticed how Hank Steinbrenner was a knockoff version of the old man.

So far, the kids are all right.