Speed of Juan Pierre was difference for the Marlins

He score one run in the first inning and drove in two in the fifth.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Juan Pierre quickly put the Florida Marlins ahead, emphasis on the quickly.
His burst of speed set up Florida's first-inning run, and his two-run single in the fifth was the difference as the Marlins beat the New York Yankees 3-2 in Saturday night's World Series opener.
"We're hoping if we get those two front guys on, these guys get on, we cause a lot of problems," Marlins manager Jack McKeon said Friday.
And they did.
Florida should consider itself lucky to have gotten Pierre from Colorado last November as part of the complicated deals that sent Mike Hampton from the Rockies to Atlanta. Pierre became the key to the Marlins' offense, a sprinter in the mode of Rickey Henderson and Vince Coleman.
Pierre reached base four times, on a bunt, a hit-and-run single, being hit with a pitch and a walk. He stole second base in the ninth.
First run
He bunted on the second pitch of the game, sending the ball past the mound and toward second. Two pitches later, the lithe outfielder from Alabama took off for second and Luis Castillo blooped the ball to the right side, vacated when second baseman Alfonso Soriano moved to cover the bag. On the very next pitch, Ivan Rodriguez flied to center field, and Pierre tagged and came home.
Fast forward to the fifth, after the Yankees had tied the score.
Jeff Conine led off with a walk and Juan Encarnacion singled to right. Knowing Pierre was up next, the Marlins had No. 9 hitter Alex Gonzalez sacrifice the runners ahead.
Pierre took a ball, fouled off a pitch and sent the next one past Derek Jeter and into left field, scoring Conine and Encarnacion as third baseman Aaron Boone cut off Hideki Matsui's throw.
For a guy who's listed at 180 pounds, Pierre sure does throw his weight around. He spent years hearing that he wasn't a prospect.
"I've heard it since I was in high school: 'Too small, can't hit with a wooden bat, can't do this, can't do that,"' he said last spring. "When you hear it in the minor leagues and college, it got under your skin, but now whatever they say doesn't matter, because I'm in the big leagues."
In the regular season, Pierre led the National League with 65 steals and was third with 204 hits. While he had just one RBI in his previous nine postseason games, he's been a repeated menace on the bases.
Couldn't stop them
The Yankees knew what they had to do, but they couldn't stop Pierre, Castillo and the Marlins from speeding by in the opener.
"You want to keep those guys off the basepaths," New York manager Joe Torre said. "They don't know any fear."