Phillies lefthander Cliff Lee could do little wrong last night, taking control of the Yankee Stadium mound and making the Yankees look vulnerable in a way they hadn’t for months.

The 50,207 braving the rain for Game 1 of the World Series had been silenced by the end, stunned by the removal of the Yankees’ home field advantage and by the impotence of bats supposedly prepared for any thing.

Lee was nasty and dominating and overwhelming, and simply too much for New York in Philadelphia’s 6-1 win.

“He made things look simple [last night],’’ Shane Victorino said. “Making pop-ups look easy, making behind-the-back catches.’’

In a game that actually was the pitchers’ duel it was supposed to be, both Lee and New York’s CC Sabathia lived up to their billing. Except, that is, for those two measly pitches thrown by Sabathia to Chase Utley. Those were different.

Those pitches - both hammered for solo home runs by Utley - lost the game for the Yankees and gave the Phillies the jump on capturing their second straight World Series title.

Between the teams, they managed just eight hits by the start of the eighth inning when Sabathia left the game, with the Yankees trailing, 2-0. The New York bullpen would blow up, adding four more to the Phillies’ margin, but it was those two homers - one in the third inning, one in the sixth - that allowed Lee’s genius to reign.

“This is what you dream of as a baseball player growing up, as a kid,’’ Lee said. “This is the stage you want to play on. You want to pitch in the World Series.’’

And that was how you want to pitch. As the night wore on, as the drizzle came and went, the Yankees’ collection of All-Stars and future Hall of Famers continued to flail. They struck out, swinging mostly, as Lee racked up strikeouts shockingly quickly. By the end of the fourth inning, after getting the Yankees’ 3-4-5 hitters in order, Lee had seven strikeouts, all on swings-and-misses. He finished the game with 10, one shy of his career high.

“You’ve got to be unpredictable, you’ve got to show them stuff they haven’t seen before and just kind of be unpredictable, mix speeds, mix locations, and don’t get in patterns,’’ Lee said. “That offense is pretty potent, and if they get a clue on what you’re trying to do and you actually do it, they’re going to make you pay.’’

They didn’t do that last night, sprinkling in a few hits and one unearned run. Jimmy Rollins’s prediction of Phillies in five looked a bit more likely than it had entering a postseason in which the Yankees appeared primed to be crowned, rewarded for their offseason spending spree.

“He’s got stuff moving in different directions,’’ Phillies pitching coach Rich Dubee said. “He not only can speed you up with a fastball, cutter inside, these are righthanders, of course. But he’s got that changeup that’s going down-and-away. It’s tough to cover two sides of the plate at different speeds, the way Cliff can do, and makes it doubly tough for hitters.’’

Lee was even helped by a call made by the umpires - finally, a correct call. With Hideki Matsui on first base in the fifth, Robinson Cano hit a soft liner that Rollins caught just above the infield dirt. He stepped on second and threw to first, with the ball arriving before Matsui got back. The umpires conferred as Cano stood on first, and eventually got it right, calling it a double play.

While Sabathia, remaking his postseason reputation with each start this October, was nearly matching Lee on the scoreboard, his stuff wasn’t quite as good. Sabathia, in fact, had loaded the bases with two outs in the first inning, issuing walks to Utley and Jayson Werth, sandwiched around a double by Ryan Howard. That didn’t hurt him, with Raul Ibanez grounding out to end the inning, but a pitch to Utley in the third did.

That pitch was sent out to home run heaven in right field. It fell a few rows deep, the first homer surrendered by Sabathia to a lefthanded hitter all season.

Then, for good measure, Utley did it again. With that one, there was no doubt. The sixth-inning blast was the second baseman’s second home run of the night, and his third of the postseason. It was just the third hit of the game for Philadelphia; despite Sabathia’s shaky first inning, he had contained virtually every other man on the opposing club - except for Utley.

Utley became the second lefthanded batter to hit two home runs off a lefthanded pitcher in one World Series game; Babe Ruth did it on Oct. 9, 1928. “I guess that’s pretty good company,’’ was all Utley would offer.

Not that either pitching performance should have come as a surprise. The participants, after all, won the last two AL Cy Young awards as Indians, before being shipped to teams better suited to the postseason. Lee had taken two wins already, one in the Division Series, one in the NLCS, and had allowed just two earned runs in those three starts. Sabathia, meanwhile, had won all three of his postseason starts, giving up three earned runs in the process.

But Lee was last night’s winner, giving the Phillies momentum, taking away the Yankees’ home-field advantage, looking calm, collected, at ease.

“If you’re a young pitcher, he’s the guy to watch,’’ Dubee said. “He establishes a great tempo, he’s a strike-thrower. He holds runners well, he fields his position well.

“There’s really not anything Cliff doesn’t do very well. And since he’s been in the National League, he swings the bat pretty well.’’

That wasn’t needed, at least last night.

It could be used in Game 4, though, if the Phillies choose to bring back their ace on short rest in Philadelphia. For now, though, Dubee said they weren’t quite worrying about that.

Instead, the Phillies can focus on Game 2, with Pedro Martinez on the mound, with a chance to stun the Yankees yet again.

“That’s what you say when you go on the road, you want to split,’’ Victorino said.

“We’ve done what we wanted to, but we want to go ahead and win Game 2.

“Why not?’’

Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com.