When Ivan Nova is on, he throws a heavy ball with loads of rotation and induces ground balls, most of them harmless as domesticated gerbils. He was on like never before and stifled the Rangers for two hits in seven and a third innings (a career high) on Friday night. Curtis Granderson hit two home runs and picked up the slack for the weak bats all around him. The Yankees beat the Rangers 4-1. Coming on the heels of three straight Yankee losses, this was a fantastic performance from both players.

Nova was great, but he cannot do it alone. All those grounders must be fielded. He coaxed 14 groundball outs to only one strikeout. The infield looked spry behind him, especially Derek Jeter who ran a 5K covering both edges of his positional responsibility. In the middle innings of a lot of his starts, the grounders turn into liners and Nova struggles. Three games in row he has pitched well past the sixth inning and avoided the disaster inning. Tonight was the first time since his debut that his Chien Min Wang potential leapt out at me.

Nova did not issue to a walk until the eighth, but he backed it up by getting a routine bouncer to first which looked to be an inning ending double play. Teixeira booted it and Nova got his feet tangled around the bag and two probable outs evaporated into nothing.

Girardi, realizing he was in uncharted waters with Nova, correctly went to the bullpen. Soriano allowed a single and a run to score, but got the two outs that ended the threat. If it’s veteran pitcher out there and the other lineup hasn’t sniffed him all night, he’d have more rope in that spot. But this is literally the longest start of his career, his pitch count was nearing 100, and he had just had the emotional let down of watching his double play bounce off Teix’s glove. That’s the right time to get help.

Mariano came in and threw darts. 14 pitches, ten strikes, two whiffs and a perfect save. The YES gun is giving him more love lately, more than I remember seeing all of last year too. Tonight, he worked the two corners of the plate like Clint Eastwood worked the two families in Fistful of Dollars.

To support Nova’s wonderful effort, enter Curtis Granderson. In the first inning, after Jeter fisted a ball into rightfield for a single, Granderson pounded a fastball on a line into the upper deck in right center. It was a special home run, the kind that might be on display on a loop in your living room in Heaven. It was also off a lefty. Huzzah! After it was clear none of the other Yankees were going to do anything, he added another impressive solo shot for the fourth run.

What did you guys think about green-lighting Arod in the second inning at 3-0 with bases loaded and two outs? I prefer to take a pitch there. At that point, a ball is a run and taking the pitch eliminates the risk of swinging at a ball. I think Arod’s pitch was high, but may have been called a strike. That’s exactly the type of borderline pitch you’d hope to avoid on 3-0 with bases loaded.

I had planned on revisiting the ALCS, this being the first game back in Texas since the Rangers stomped through to the Series. But with no more Cliff Lee, Hamilton and Nelson Cruz injured, this felt like playing one of the post-Arod Rangers squads from 2005-08. Hardly anything here to get worked up about and plenty of reason to expect good hunting for the rest of this series.