Bronx, N.Y., April 5, 2005 — “Turn the page” was the slogan we were repeating among ourselves in the Tier behind home plate Sunday, and with the Unit’s successful debut that’s exactly what the Yankees did. Gazing slant-eyed into the gleaming sky at 12:30 Tuesday afternoon, however, the overwhelming impression one got was that this was the real Opening Day. While it’s true that New York fans were delighted when Randy Johnson beat the Sox Sunday night 9-2 in the season’s first game, you would have been hard pressed to find anyone who agreed that that felt like an opener in the cold and dark of the Bronx night.

Considering the revamped Yankee rotation, the second part of which I’d be seeing shortly, I tried again for a season-culminating thought; I found my answer circling above the Stadium. A blimp belonging to a tire manufacturing company with a one-word name hovered above. But because Goodyear features the winged feet of the god Mercury (Hermes to the Greeks) between their name’s two syllables, it reads rather like, “Good Year.” The Yanks went out and got three new starters; they each needed to have a good year.

Carl Pavano did not disappoint. He was overpowering early, accomplishing two feats that rarely go hand-in-hand, as he piled up strike outs while keeping his pitch count down. When Manny Ramirez couldn’t hold a half swing in whiffing for the first out of the fourth inning, Pavano had notched seven strike outs among the first 10 retired Sox players, and he had done it in a nifty 45 tosses.

New Boston starter Matt Clement, on the other hand, needed 64 pitches to record 10 outs, and he was on the wrong side of a 3-0 score by the time he did. Sox fans cheered his 11-pitch, one-two-three first, but a Matsui single and Posada and Williams walks around a Giambi strike out soaked the sacks for the home team in the second. Clement came back strong on pop outs of Martinez and Womack (the first of two times the Yanks would fail to score in a one-out, bases-loaded situation), but the exertion cost him 25 pitches, and he would not recover as well during a shaky third.

Boston fans will perhaps cry “Foul,” I guess (they did today), but when Matt hit Derek Jeter with the first pitch of the bottom of the third, it combined with yet another hbp of Giambi to make a two-game total of four hit Yanks against no struck Boston players, a trend that picks up where it left off last year. Clement missed with his first offering to A-Rod, and Alex then smacked a hard hopper to Edgar Renteria’s left, a seemingly sure 6-6-3. But the ball was smoked, and it came up on the Boston shortstop, caroming off his glove and body to short left. Sensing weak arms in the area, Jeter sped around to third, with A-Rod moving to second on Damon’s ill-advised peg to third. Ahead in the count 1-0 again, Sheffield’s bid for a single into the third-base hole was smothered on a fine dive by third baseman Mueller, who threw Gary out as Jeter put the Yankees up, 1-0. Clement fell behind Matsui, got two borderline calls to even things at 2-2, and then came in where Godzilla hit his second two-run homer to right in as many games.

Given the 3-0 lead, Pavano got the aforementioned strike out of Ramirez, but Yankee Killer David Ortiz lofted his next pitch deep and over the fence to straight center. Wobbly, Carl walked Millar on five pitches, then retired Renteria and Varitek on a liner to center and a no-man’s-land pop to short right-center that Sheffield caught diving and rolling. His strike-out pitch gone, Pavano worked through to the seventh by getting six of seven outs on grounders around one single in the fifth and two in the sixth. But when Mueller (3-for-4 in the eighth spot) and Belhorn (2-for-4) smacked one-out singles in the seventh, Torre replaced Pavano with his lone lefty in the pen, the returning Mike Stanton.

Stanton worked Damon to 2-2, then allowed an rbi single to right, but he doubled up Trot Nixon on a 4-4-3 on the same count, so Pavano’s one-run lead was intact. Carl needed but 86 pitches to pitch into the seventh, and the 55/31 strikes/balls ratio was good; he averaged first-pitch strikes to two out of every three Sox while facing 27. And he pitched smart, notching six of his seven strike outs (one was called) in the first seven (of eight all told) times he got Boston hitters to swing and miss. He fell behind in the count 3-0 just once (Millar’s walk), and 2-0 just two times. Seven of eight hits allowed covered but one base.

Like Sunday night’s game, a three-run Yankee third inning was pivotal in this battle. But unlike the cold wet opener, we had a one-run game in the seventh (it was 6-2 Yanks after seven Sunday), more Sox fans were making their presence heard, and fans of both teams were enjoying the weather on a day made for baseball. Concession people were having a better time of it too, with beer and hot dog sales brisk, and the peanut vendors were out cranking long tosses to any purchasers willing to play their harmless game. But the fun fell short for at least one vendor and one Sox fan, seated several seats to my right in Row E of Box 622. The peanut-tossing seller was on the aisle and seven or eight rows down and quite a few seats over when he whipped some peanuts to a Yankee fan after Trot Nixon struck out to end the top of the third. But the bag glanced off the fan’s hands and right into his neighbor’s beer cup, which tilted right and dumped all of its contents on the head and shoulder of the Sox fan next to him.

The Yankees, meanwhile, continued to threaten, finally chasing Clement with one down in the fifth on Sheffield and Posada singles. Southpaw Halama loaded them up by hitting Giambi, but he escaped when Williams bounced into a 1-2-3 dp on a 1-1 pitch. Mantei got four outs into the seventh, but walked A-Rod, after issuing three free passes and a homer getting two outs in Game One. Matsui singled off situational lefty sidearmer Myers, but Embree put out the fire by whiffing Giambi. Francona used seven pitchers Sunday, and closer Keith Foulke, entering to start the eighth, made six on Tuesday.

One imagines that Tom Gordon must have been thinking back to last year as he came on to pitch the eighth, but he battled Ramirez, Ortiz, and Millar to a standstill, retiring them on 14 pitches, and when Mariano Rivera struck out Renteria to start the ninth, the Yankee roar was deafening. But Red Sox Nation, quiet after the one-run rally in the seventh, came to life when Varitek tied matters with a 1-2 liner to the short porch in right. Mueller singled, but Rivera struck Bellhorn out swinging, and fans of both persuasions agonized as Damon’s long, high fly to right nestled into Gary Sheffield’s glove just two steps short of the right field wall.

Not that familiar with Matt Clement from his days in the National League, Yankee fans were delighted and Red Sox fans dismayed that he had so much trouble with the strike zone. His strikes/balls ratio (51/40) was not good, he threw first-pitch strikes to only eight of 23 batters, and it took him 91 pitches to record just 13 outs. But it was more surprising when Keith Foulke, in for a second inning to start the ninth, quickly fell behind Derek Jeter 3-0. Home plate ump Brian Gorman called strike on a borderline inside pitch, then again on one the other way, with Jeter starting toward first both times. Derek lined the sixth pitch off, and then he belted a high outside offering several rows over the right field wall, and the Stadium went crazy. 4-3 Yankees!

So now the season is two games old, and the Yankees have beaten the rival Red Sox twice. It should escape no one that Yankee Captain and shortstop Derek Jeter has reached safely six of nine times, he has two extra base hits (including today’s winner), has stolen a base, scored four times, and he made good plays each game. Just ask his counterpart Edgar Renteria, who was victimized both times. Edgar has struggled, with an error today, and a bobble on a Posada roller that was ruled a hit Sunday; he is 0-for-8, and has bounced into two double plays.

You must remember this…
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by

Song writer and performer Dooley Wilson, who wrote and performed that song in the classic Humphrey Bogart film Casablanca, would have been 111 years old the day of Sunday’s Opener. If the Red Sox hope to start a tradition that will rival the winning one we’ve enjoyed in the Bronx, with Championships that continue “as time goes by,” they’ll have to sharpen their “fundamental” play. Renteria’s resume indicates he’s up to it. Maybe today was just a Yankee shortstop day. After all, on April 5, 1977, the Yankees acquired a defender for that position familiar to a few fans in this rivalry. His name? Bucky Dent.

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!