Bronx, N.Y., April 28, 2011 – The Yankees fell 5-3 to the visiting Toronto Blue Jays Friday night, largely due to an unfortunate confluence of events: Freddy Garcia took the mound for his first start this season without his pinpoint control, David Robertson had a rare tough outing in relief where he couldn’t throw where he wanted no matter the target, and the Yankee offense showed what happens all too often when they fall behind even if they put runners in scoring position.

Freddy threw just 14 of 27 first-pitch strikes through five labored innings, a total not much worse than what Bartolo Colon and Ivan Nova threw earlier this week, but to paraphrase Homey the Clown’s signature line from Keenan Ivory-Wayans’s classic comedy TV show In Living Color from two decades ago, “Freddy don’t play that.” Garcia lives on uncertainty, feeding on batters who don’t know what’s coming next, or where. But in an early episode that bespoke how the formula wasn’t working, he went to a full count on the first two batters of both the second and third innings. Funny thing about a full count – a batter wondering which pitch and where one minute faces clearly easier options: Swing, or take the pitch.

The first three batters took that 3-2 pitch, and walked. Adding to a fan’s frustration, the third of these, Yunel Escobar, leading off the third inning, stood and watched as offspeed floaters drifted by, advancing the count against him from 1-2 to 4-2, a walk. Incongruously, Freddy left the fast ball on the shelf until it was 3-2 to the next batter, 50-homer-hitter from the 2010 season Jose Bautista. The inside, but not enough inside, heater the Jays right fielder launched to left stayed inside the foul pole because his rocket shot simply had no time to curve. Just like that, it was 2-1 Jays in the third, and 3-1 one frame later when catcher J.P. Arencibia launched one to left as well.

David Robertson replaced Freddy, who threw 101 pitches in just five innings, in the sixth. But the Yankee reliever missed with four straight to start, missed again for a second walk and, by the time he actually allowed a base hit, it led to two runs. Despite the two walks, a swinging strike out of Adam Lind put a scoreless frame within his grasp, but he threw the ball away during an abortive double steal attempt, the Jays score twice, and the visitors had a 5-2 lead.

Which wasn’t an unmanageable margin, of course, not when the home team still had several innings to respond. And threats were mounted. The Yankees loaded the bases with no one out in the fifth, had three on with one out in the eighth, and had the tying runs on in the seventh inning as well. But their only effective reply came off the bat of Robinson Cano, whose two singleton home runs kept the Yanks in the game. Mark Teixeira popped out to a retreating shortstop with the sacks crammed in the fifth, and Brett Gardner failed to tag up, as he is one of the few players who could have scored on the play. Alex Rodriguuez, who for the first time this year is actually starting to struggle, bounced into a double play and the best, though not the last, chance was gone. When free passes to Russell Martin and Gardner loaed the bases again, this time with one down, in the eighth, Derek Jeter worked the count to 2-2, but struck out, and Nick Swisher grounding meekly to first on the next pitch, to waste the last Yankee chance.

It’s a criticism we’ve heaard several times before, in a season that is just four weeks old. The Bombers either homer their way to a win, or they lose. They don’t play small ball, they don’t move runners, they don’t score runs in rallies. This game, sadly, demonstrated just how true those criticisms can be.

On April 29, 1852, 159 years ago, Peter Roget published his first thesaurus. Readers and writers would no longer be stumped looking for just the right word, no matter how complex or uncertain the subject. With his help, and that of his descendents, there a few other words to describe the Yankee come-from-behind attempts Friday night. The attack the home team mounted could be called a number of things, but these will do for a start: incompetent, incapable, impotent, unable, inadequate, unfit, unequal to, ineffective, ineffectual, lacking, insufficient, futile, barren and sterile.

So to speak.

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!