The names change, the faces look younger and managers come and go, but when the Yankees play the Twins in October nothing is ever different.

Adamant that their tortured postseason past against the Yankees meant nothing heading into Game 1 of the ALDS, the Twins, thanks to a putrid bullpen performance, melted on a cool fall evening on the way to a 10-4 loss that was witnessed by Hal Steinbrenner and a sold-out Yankee Stadium crowd of 49,233.

The victory provides the Yankees with a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five affair that continues Saturday with the first pitch set for 5:07 p.m. Masahiro Tanaka starts for the Yankees and the Twins will provide a cigarette and blindfold for right-hander Randy Dobnak.

After winning the AL Central title, the Twins had reason to believe this was going to be different. Of course it wasn’t, thanks to a bullpen that gave up seven runs, including two homers and Gleyber Torres’ backbreaking, two-run double in the fifth inning that put the Yankees ahead, 5-3. Torres hit it on a 3-2 pitch after falling into a 0-2 hole against right-hander Tyler Duffey.

“He is smart and he is confident,’’ Aaron Boone said of his 22-year-old second baseman, who rifled a ball past a diving Miguel Sano at third base. “Really good combination when you are talented.’’

The Yankees’ 11th straight postseason win over the Twins didn’t start well for the hosts. But even after James Paxton gave up solo homers to Jorge Polanco in the first inning and Nelson Cruz in the third, there was never a feeling the Yankees were in trouble.

Sure enough, the Yankees took advantage of first baseman C.J. Cron’s fielding error that led to two runs in the third after Edwin Encarnacion’s RBI double.

“Do the best I can and looking for my pitch,’’ said Encarnacion, who also doubled in the first inning. It was the designated hitter’s first big league at-bat since leaving a game on Sept. 12 with a left oblique injury. “Try to swing at balls in the strike zone.’’

The regularity of the Yankees beating the Twins is alarming. Friday night’s win was the Yankees’ 14th in the last 16 postseason games against the Twins.

“The first one’s the biggest one,’’ Aaron Judge said. “Sets the tone for the series.’’

Solo home runs by DJ LeMahieu and Brett Gardner in the sixth stretched the Yankees’ lead to 7-4 and LeMahieu added a three-run double in the seventh to finish with four RBIs.

Judge singled, walked and scored twice and made sensational diving catches when the game was close.

“Tough plays, but he makes them look easy,’’ Gardner said of Judge, whose head-first dive robbed Polanco of a hit in the third and whose dive toward the right-field foul line denied Eddie Rosario an RBI extra-base hit in seventh. “He is really good out there.’’

The same can’t be said about a Twins bullpen that was the biggest reason they are trying to avoid falling into a 0-2 ditch on Saturday. Nothing four of the five arms did in Game 1 was encouraging. Meanwhile. the Yankees’ pen allowed one run, on Sano’s homer off winner Tommy Kahnle in the sixth, in 4 ¹/₃ innings after Paxton went 4 ²/₃ frames.

“These are the guys we have leaned on heavily throughout the year. We are going to continue to lean on them heavily,’’ Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We are going to see them back out there and throwing in important situations.’’

Baldelli is new to this brand of baseball torture, but in time he will learn that Yankees-Twins in October might as well be the Four Tops singing, “It’s The Same Old Song.’’