TOKYO - Hideki Matsui came through for his fans, and so did the New York Yankees.
Matsui rocked the Tokyo Dome with a two-run homer, Jorge Posada hit three-run shots from both sides of the plate and the Yankees calmed their jittery supporters back home by routing the Tampa Bay Devil Rays 12-1 on Wednesday night.
A day after Tampa Bay turned baseball upside down by winning the season opener 8-3, the Yankees restored the old order - appropriate for a country tied to tradition - in another game that started just after 5 a.m. back home in New York.
Kevin Brown got his 198th career victory in his first start for the Yankees, allowing six hits over seven innings. Tom Gordon and Mariano Rivera finished with hitless relief.
Tony Clark, playing first base because of Jason Giambi's cranky knee, hit a tiebreaking two-run homer for the Yankees, who made sure they didn't return home from the Orient 0-2 and in last place.
Owner George Steinbrenner took the first loss calmly, saying, "It's not where you start, it's where you finish," but an 0-2 trip might have led to a different tune.
It was another quiet game for Alex Rodriguez, who went 0-for-5 and is now 1-for-9 with no RBIs. And Derek Jeter finally got his first hit, an RBI single, after going hitless in his first seven at-bats.
But the night - if not the whole week - belonged to Matsui, Japan's biggest sports star.
After starring for 10 years with the Yomiuri Giants, he signed with the Yankees before the 2003 season. In his first game back, he homered against his old team in Sunday's exhibition game.
That didn't count. This one did.
Playing his last game in Japan before heading back to the United States, he repeatedly was greeted by flashbulb-popping fans thrilled to see him in person.
He rewarded them with two big hits. After Aubrey Huff's RBI single in the first put the Devil Rays ahead, Matsui tied it in the fourth with a run-scoring single off loser Jeremi Gonzalez.
Clark's homer in the fourth put New York ahead 3-1. In the fifth, Matsui teed off on a belt-high pitch, sending it deep into the seats in right-center. Japanese fans gave him a standing ovation, a rarity in this country. Some of the spectators repeatedly bowed to him.
The ovation was prolonged, as if fans were trying to get him to come out for a curtain call. But Matsui, always modest, didn't come back out of the dugout.
"He came back here, and he knew exactly what to expect," Yankees manager Joe Torre said before the game. "I think you have to stick a pin in his arm to get a reaction from him, he's just so laid back and so controlled."
He had another chance to come up big in the seventh when he batted with the bases loaded, but Matsui struck out against Trever Miller.
The crowd in the Big Egg was much quieter than the previous night. And while some Yankees' fans might have been furious over the opener, players were calm.
"Whether you win two, lose two or split, this is two games of 162, and that's what really the season is all about," Torre said. "You really can't get yourself too worked up, one way or the other."
Posada homered right-handed off Damian Moss in the fifth, and left-handed against Jorge Sosa in the seventh. It was the fifth time he homered from both sides in the same game, the first since June 28, 2002, against the New York Mets.
Brown, the 39-year-old right-hander acquired from Los Angeles in December, struck out five and walked none. His turning point came in the fourth, when he gave up a leadoff single to Jose Cruz Jr. and went to a 3-0 count on Tino Martinez. Brown came back to strike out Martinez as Cruz was caught trying to steal second.
