Rockies and Diamondbacks take leads as Yankees lose

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks surged to 2-0 leads in the National League Division Series playoffs with convincing wins on Thursday.

The Rockies crushed the Philadelphia Phillies 10-5 on the road with the Diamondbacks stopping the Chicago Cubs 8-4 in Phoenix.

In the American League series opener, Cleveland pounded the New York Yankees 12-3.

Rookie Chris Young's three-run homer in the second inning put the Arizona Diamondbacks ahead to stay in their home win over the Chicago Cubs.

Stephen Drew added a two-run triple in the fourth inning and Arizona stretched the lead to 8-2 in the fifth before the Cubs scored two in the sixth.

Doug Davis gained the win striking out eight in five-plus innings. He gave up four runs and five hits, including Geovany Soto's two-run homer in the second inning.

*Rockies second baseman Kaz Matsui had three hits and five RBIs, delivering a grand slam home run in the fourth and a run-scoring triple in the sixth in Colorado's big win.

"I came from Japan to play on a Major League level and this is my first playoffs and I'm so excited and I'm so happy that I'm here," Matsui told reporters.

"I didn't think about a grand slam at all. I just stepped into the batter's box and I tried to hit."

Matt Holliday and Yorvit Torrealba each contributed a pair of RBIs, as the Rockies continued their blistering late-season form collecting their 16th win in 17 games.

The series shifts to Denver on Saturday for game three and the Phillies face an uphill climb. Teams that have won the opening two games in a best-of-five format have gone on to win the series 20 of 21 times.

*Asdrubal Cabrera, Victor Martinez, Travis Hafner and Ryan Garko homered as the Cleveland Indians used 14 hits to rout the New York Yankees.

Martinez, Garko and Kenny Lofton each had three hits for the Central Division champions Indians, who had been swept by the Yankees in six regular-season meetings.

"I think it (the win) is big, because at this point we were all talking about a regular season, regular season," Lofton told reporters. "The playoffs are a whole different atmosphere."

C.C. Sabathia gave up four hits and three runs in five innings but still claimed the victory for Cleveland. Loser Wang Chien-ming yielded eight runs and nine hits in four-plus innings.

Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez went 0-for-2 and walked twice for another poor post-season start.

(Writing by Steve Keating in Detroit and Gene Cherry in Raleigh, North Carolina)