Bronx, N.Y., October 16, 2009 — The Yanks beat the Angels 4-1 in Game One of the ALCS Friday night in a game where the Halos contributed to their own demise with uncharcateristically sloppy play. But whatever was affecting the Angels had the Scoreboard operators off their game as well. The only ones who played their “A” game were the dominant Yankee starter CC Sabathia and the fellow members of his team.

Featuring a stellar fastball, Sabathia struck out four around two singles to keep the Halos off the board through three. Both base hits came with two down, giving the visitors little chance to work their baserunning magic. Following the bottom of the first, CC was pitching with a lead as the Yanks jumped on John Lackey for a quick tally, but the second run New York scored was a gift-wrapped present from the Anaheim defense. Derek Jeter worked Lackey through eight pitches, finally singling to right, and Johnny Damon moved him to third with a single to left. Juan Rivera in left split the defenders with his throw into the infield, and Damon scampered into second, a play that would be ruled an error four innings later. Alex Rodriguez got the Yanks a run with a sac fly to center, and Hideki Matsui skied a popup to shortstop. But neither Erick Aybar at short nor Chone Figgins took charge, and the ball plopped onto the infield dirt as Damon scored, 2-0 Yanks.

Anaheim finally reached CC for a run in the top of the fourth, largely because Vlad Guerrero caught up with a fastball with one down. Battling a hard wind all the way, it bounced at the wall, and one out later Kendry Morales scored him with what would be the Angels’ fourth and last hit. Still, the lead was halved, and the visitors had reason to feel encouraged.

Lackey wasn’t at his best, but he battled. The Yanks had put two on with two out in the third; they did the same in the fourth but didn’t score either time. But aside from a 12-pitch second, the Yanks were costing him 20-plus pitches a frame, and they got to him following a Damon leadoff double in the fifth. Torii Hunter has solidified the center field defense in Anaheim since he arrived two seasons ago, but he looked curiously slow this night. On both Damon’s ball to left center and a Matsui double the same way one out later, left fielder Rivera got to the balls first; he may have been closer, but Hunter appeared to be coasting on both plays. He had done the same on an A-Rod single to center in the third, and the slow-footed Mark Teixeira took advantage of it to scoot from first to third base. Whether Hunter was slow off the mark or not, however, Matsui’s one-outdouble restored the Yanks’ two-run lead when Damon scored, even if A-Rod, who had walked, was tagged out trying to score behind Damon.

The Yanks had another two-out baserunner in the sixth, as Melky Cabrera worked an eight-pitch walk. Two throws into Jeter’s at bat Lackey missed with a pickoff throw past first, and Jeter delivered run number four with a single to center on the next pitch, the last throw Lackey would make. His wild peg to first was the second Halos error; Hunter made a third when Jeter’s single got past him. And the popup that fell in the first, though not an error, was not Anaheim’s finest moment either.

It was all Sabathia other than that. Once Morales plated the Angels’ run in the fourth, he used only 20 pitches to retire the next six batters, the last two on three excellent Yankee plays. Damon charged and slid to garner a sinking Bobby Abreu liner to left leading off the sixth, and Hunter looked his old self on an excellent bunt toward third, But CC charged it hard, wheeled and threw, and the elastic Teixeira stretched so much it hurt to watch to nab the throw, and the out, before tumbling off the bag. The big Yankee lefty struck out Guerrero to close the sixth and Rivera to start the seventh, both swinging, He fell behind Morales 3-0, the second of two three-ball counts he would face all night, then missed for his only walk, and Robbie Cano retired Howie Kendrick on a dive into the hole and throw to first. Sabathia got the pinch-hitting Mike Napoli swiinging to end that frame.

Angels righty Jason Bulger, who had relieved Lackey, walked the bases loaded around a Cano hit by pitch in the bottom of the seventh, taking 30 throws to finally snuff the threat his own errant throws had caused. But during all that time, nobody stirred in the Yankee pen. With 99 throws behind him, and potentially three days’ rest in front of him, Sabathia came out for the eighth. Feeling it, he turned and successfully gloved Aybar’s bouncer up the middle behind his back, then retired the 0-for-the postseason Figgins and Abreu to end his night.

It was at this time that the Yankee Scoreboard came on with their guess-the-attendance shtick, listing three totals (all over 49,000), but then the display was gone. There were glitches with the Stadium displays early too. Although they listed pitch type and count from the beginning, they failed to post the usual pitch speeds until the third inning. Furthermore, when a Yankee fouled off a ball in the first, they flubbed a sound bite. It took them years, literally, to approximate a musical prompt to which fans would cheer the traditional “Let’s Go Yankees” chant, and they use it and similar to fill the dead time after a foul ball out of play. Only when the ball was fouled, the speakers went quiet. They worked it out later, as they did the attendance guess too (49,688, the top of three choices, by the way).

But the Yanks played their game, even if they were a little short in the timely hits department. Sabathia was superb, with a 76/28 strikes/balls ratio, seven-to-one on strike outs to walks and just four hits, none after the fourth. He threw 18 first-pitch strikes in 29 chances (Lackey was 14-14). Mariano Rivera came on and picked up the expected save, as he has been doing now since he became Yankee closer in 1997. Captain Jeter scored the first Yankee run and drove in the last, and the just-keeps-hitting Matsui drove in two. Damon had two hits after a tough ALDS, and Cabrera, following a 2-for 12 last series, had two walks, a single, and a run scored.

It just seemed that some of the paid professionals were operating under a spell Friday night. The Angels were throwing the ball to places where no fielder waited, letting popups fall, watching as the Yankee runners sped first to third, and took second whenever they got the chance. And the pros that orchestrate the scoreboard-driven fun were having their troubles too. Perhaps they were all a little off their game on this, what would have been Alice Pearce’s 96th birthday. Not familiar with Ms. Pearce? How about Gladys Kravitz? Ms. Pearce played this nosy neighbor of the Stevens family in the classic TV sitcom, Bewitched. She witnessed Darren Stevens wearing the wrong face, a door in the Stevens house that opened on another world, and saw little Tabitha speaking complete sentences when she was two weeks old. Gladys Kravitz had all her unfortunate visions in Westport, Connecticut. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, on the other hand, were

Bewitched in the Bronx

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!