Tampa, Fla., March 4 — “Tampa — 52 degrees, New York — 27 degrees” the Legends Field scoreboard proudly proclaimed during today’s second inning, but with the wind I bet you it was a lot closer than doing the math might lead you to believe. But I am here, I’m watching Yankee Baseball, so shame on me. (“Ah-choo!!”) But, as the home page photo showed, we are certainly in good (left) hands with Boomer (23 pitches in two innings — only seven [all strikes] in the first), Jason (a booming second-inning double) and Robin (the two-out single to deliver him).

It was our second consecutive loss, and the kids had a tough time (Drew had three errors, two on the same play, and Almonte failed to make a tough infield scoop on a bang-bang play), mostly at Mike Stanton’s expense.

I incorporated “GS” and “GP” into my scorekeeping methodology years ago, meaning Good Shot and Good Play respectively, and today I added a corollary to the second: GAP (Good, Awkward Play), when Twins left fielder Ryan retreated, stumbled and then charged and dived to catch Ventura’s third-inning short fly. Sitting in left, we had plenty of opportunities to witness and judge Nick Johnson, our own work in progress, in the outfield. The mixed results: He failed to make what would have been an outstanding catch at the wall in the eighth. In the fourth he first handled Tom Prince’s single flawlessly, then dropped it in the glove-to-hand transfer, but no harm was done. Then he corraled Matt LeCroy’s single with Canizaro on second and found the cutoff, but a little too deliberately to stop the run. Then finally on Ryan’s seventh-inning drive to the gap, he turned right, raced back, then lunged toward center and speared it. He is an athlete, he singled hard and later lined out to the wall in right off a lefty. And he did make that catch. But be prepared for some “GAP”s.

Home, then away, double-dip tomorrow.

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!