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AL: Closer is ready to be stretched

NEW YORK -- Yankees closer Mariano Rivera is ready to pitch more than one inning at a time despite manager Joe Torre's reluctance to push his star too hard.

Rivera, who spent two stints on the DL with a sore right shoulder, has had 19 postseason saves longer than an inning the past four years.

"If I'm pitching here, I'm ready," he said Monday. "I wouldn't have come back if I wasn't. I'm not 99 percent, I'm 100 percent."

ANGELS SUITOR: A Mexican billionaire who owns one of his country's most successful baseball teams is interested in buying the Anaheim Angels from the Walt Disney Co.

Before the Angels traveled to New York to face the Yankees in the franchise's first playoff appearance since 1986, Carlos Peralta went from Mexico City to Los Angeles last week to discuss a possible bid, team spokeswoman Trish Penny said.

Peralta watched part of Sunday's game between the Angels and Mariners from a luxury box at Anaheim's Edison Field and met with team officials, Penny said.

THE UNDERDOGS: When the series between the Twins and A's is over, it will mark the first time a team with a payroll in baseball's bottom half has won a postseason round since the format was restructured in 1995.

"Both teams are similar in the fact of a lot of homegrown talent," A's first baseman Scott Hatteberg said. "You really have to look at the development part of the organization.

"You don't see it very often anymore. A lot of teams just go out and buy players, and this team is built from within."

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