Bronx, N.Y., April 30, 2006 — It is not with a self-congratulatory tone I tell you that scoring games can be a weird way to enjoy a ballgame. It’s a sport that reduces itself well to numbers, but if you love the game like I do, the experience definitely adds up to more than the sum of all the figures. I was musing about this right after the Blue Jays had taken a 1-0 lead in the top of the third of Sunday’s last of the three games in Yankee Stadium. Sad to say, the superb Mike Mussina was in a bit of a pickle, not only due to a few tosses a bit too much in the zone, but also because game veteran Bernie Williams was having a forgettable inning in right field.

Alex Rios’s sinking liner to short right center was clearly a hit, though a good break by Bernie might have made all the difference. Then he turned the wrong way on Frank Catalanotto’s line double, and Rios scored easily when the carom off the wall carried well past him. Finally, Catalanatto challenged Williams, subbing for the injured Gary Sheffield this day, on a fly to short right. Frank only made it safely to third with one down because the throw that would have beaten him was well up the line from the bag.

I wondered how Joe Torre would play it with power hitter Troy Glaus coming up. Would he concede the second run and keep his infielders back, or risk more trouble by playing them in? To indicate the answer in a cramped scorecard was a challenge, but it’s easy to verbalize: “Yes, and no.”

“In” usually finds the infielders located at the edge of the infield grass, and in this case they played only a couple of steps back on the right side. But Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, at third and short respectively, pivoted expectantly on the dirt roughly midway between the infield and outfield stretches of grass. As it turned out, the wily Moose made it all academic. After one off the plate, Glaus fouled off a low fastball, then a spitter, and he was buckled by the veteran righty’s 1-2, 72-mph change. When Lyle Overbay followed by lining out, the hot-hitting Yanks remained just one behind.

Although the game was thrilling and the weather divine, the day had its frustrating moments too. Both managers were tossed for arguing balls and strikes with home plate ump Adam Dowdy, whose definition of a strike zone agreed with that of no one on the field, nor anyone in the stands either. With four wins against Toronto lefty Gustavo Chacin last year, and good swings despite a loss last week, it seemed to the fans the Yanks would break through, but spirits were dampened when in the first four frames Dowdy punched out six Yanks on strikes, four of them taking, and two with a full count. Were those first four innings exciting and fun? Yes, and no.

Fairness requires that I add that Moose got 21 strike calls from Mr. Dowdy, though all but one of the strike outs he notched were of the swinging variety. But it’s ironic that with so many disgruntled batters mumbling as they walked away from the plate this day, it was probably a strike Dowdy didn’t give to Mussina in the fifth that led to Joe Torre’s early exit. With two down and the sacks filled, Shea Hillenbrand, who homered twice in yesterday’s game, came up. Shea was a double strike out victim to this point, and the Yankee dugout thought it was triple on a Moose 1-2 curve that might have caught the outside corner. Disappointed with the noncall, Mike missed with a change as the Yankee dugout howled, but Mussina got the Blue Jay DH swinging on an 82 mph cutter.

Chacin’s luck ran out in the fifth, after first baseman Andy Phillips tied it on a clutch, one-out home run to right. Johnny Damon then notched his second consecutive three-hit game with a slashing double to the left field corner. Chacin loaded the bases by walking Jeter and Giambi (who had already taken two third strikes), and when a 3-2 pitch to Alex Rodriguez whisked by low and inside, Damon trotted across with the lead run. It was Blue Jays Manager John Gibbons’s turn to protest, and he got his money’s worth confronting Dowdy and crew chief Gary Darling once he was tossed for disputing the call. The three consecutive free passes were the Toronto southpaw’s only walks of the day, but the Jays would never recover.

The Yanks threatened in the sixth, but a fine stab by second sacker Aaron Hill started a 4-6-3 to escape. But the visitors did not survive a quick barrage in the seventh, as Jeter doubled to the right field wall with two down off reliever Pete Walker and Giambi put the game away with a rocket blast that struck the outside edge of the right field upper deck, for a 4-1 Yankee lead. Mussina had handed the game to the bullpen after six, and Kyle Farnsworth and Mariano Rivera divvied up the remaning outs. Mo, in particular, looked trademark-sharp by forcing a popup to end the eighth and three weak grounders, two on broken bats, in the ninth.

Mussina’s line is textbook good pitching. His 64/31 strikes/balls ratio exceeds 2/1, he struck out seven while walking just two, and pitched around seven hits, six of them for one base. With the Jays as confused as anyone about the zone, he garnered 11 swinging strikes from the visitors, and of the 27 batters to face him, 19 got first-pitch strikes.

But that’s all just bookkeeping, I guess. Most in the stands just saw an exciting game, and they hung on every pitch. Despite all the conflicted pitch calls, the game moved along, and when Jeter’s throw of Rios’s two-out grounder in the ninth settled into Phillips’s glove, the Yanks had won their 10th straight day game to start the ’06 season in a manageable 2:56. Am I delighted at this quirk of the record, in light of the corresponding 3-10 mark at night? They’ve won all four home series, but none of the four on the road. They stood their ground and took close pitches to score the go-ahead run after taking strike three four times. Damon bunted his way on to start the game, and hit safely twice going the other way, but Matsui was thrown out in a rundown on a short wild pitch in yet one more Yankee baserunning blunder.

And they go to Boston now Monday in a virtual first-place tie, with three days of rain in the forecast. What, me happy?

Yes. And No.

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!