There they were yesterday – the poor, young, inexperienced and undermanned Twins trying to keep pace with the defending World Series champion Yankees at Yankee Stadium.

That’s exactly the way Minnesota would like to be portrayed, according to some of the Twins after they snapped the Yankees’ 5-0 home start to the 2000 season with a 7-3 win over Roger Clemens (1-2) yesterday.

The Yankees’ payroll, some $94 million, ranks highest among all major-league teams. Minnesota’s ranks dead lowest in the game, at about $16.5 million.

“On paper, we’re supposed to be the worst team in the league,” Twins’ left fielder Jacque Jones said after the Twins moved to 10-11 with the sixth win in their last seven games.

“We’ve read in all the magazines and newspapers how we’re supposed to be at the bottom and that we’re the worst. We don’t think so.

“If this game were played on paper, it would be no contest. But we don’t look at it that way. I mean, on paper, why even play the game? But we don’t back down from anybody.”

Certainly, Jones backed his words up in the fateful seventh inning, not backing down from Clemens, who’d been cruising along, collecting strikeouts (nine in all). Jones rapped a leadoff double to right and scored the eventual winning run.

“We believe in ourselves,” Jones said. “We don’t care about what people are saying or writing or predicting. We know we’re not the worst team in baseball. We aren’t the worst team and I know it . … everyone here knows it.”

Twins’ DH Butch Huskey, the former Met, said of the outside world’s low expectations of Minnesota, “That’s good. I like that. I’ve been on teams that were supposed to win day in and day out. No one expects us to win and when we do, it opens eyes.”