Tampa, FL., March 6 — Well, the morning broke upon another gorgeous day in Tampa Monday, with the Yanks hosting the Blue Jays after having gotten off the losing train in Dunedin the day before. But although Yankee fans may think they’re not prey to the frailities and fears inherent to fans of lesser teams, they sometimes need something to fret about. The Bombers had reached two pretty good pitchers in Ted Lilly and B.J. Ryan for eight line drive hits in three frames Sunday, but it seemed something was missing. The lack of power hitting was a lingering concern. Andy Phillips’s singleton opposite-field shot on Thursday was still the only Yankee home run after four games.

Of course, a dip in the team’s power hitting makes perfect sense early in this exhibition season, with four of the club’s best hitters away, and Gary Sheffield, Hideki Matsui, and Jason Giambi having compiled just 35 of the 144 man-innings possible among them in four days. But a Yankee fan, though brash, can have a vulnerable side, and a Toronto power show early Monday didn’t help. Troy Glaus reached starter Chien-Ming Wang for a first-inning, two-run bomb off the top of the batter’s eye behind the wall in dead center, and the Dale-Mabry-Avenue-bound rocket Eric Hinske launched in the second disappointed one and all when it hugged the right-field line and did not curve foul.

The Yanks had equaled Glaus’s marker off Jays righty Dustin MacGowan on a Robinson Cano walk, a Hideki Matsui (in his first play in left field so far) double, a Jason Giambi sac fly, and an Andy Phillips single in the first. But Hinske promptly untied it. Basking in the unrelenting sun, the crowd relaxed a bit as Wang survived a shaky second when first baseman Giambi scooped yet another low throw for the third out. The Yankee assault on MacGowan picked up immediately as a walk, a stolen base, and three singles produced a 5-3 lead, and the young righty found himself with a 3-2 count on Cano.

Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour turned 60 Monday, and I found myself humming “The Wall” as Cano blasted the next pitch over the right field wall to stretch the lead. Robby Cano may never be a home run hitter, but he proved his line drives capable of the distance down the stretch last year. Although he has been a starter less than a year, Cano has been a stabilizing veteran presence in this lineup so filled with even younger guys. The team needed a blast, and he provided it. The second sacker has surprising power for a guy who slashes balls with an almost level but downward swing, and teams are learning quickly that he is one of the toughest Yankees to defend. He singled up the middle in three at bats Thursday, and lashed a liner down the third base line the next day reminiscent of his ALCS tracer that way vs. the Angels in last year’s ALDS. Saturday and Sunday featured a couple of singles to left and two near misses up the middle, so the Jays had to be scratching their collective heads after the homer to right, followed by a single down the same line that smacked off the wall on a fly later in this game.

Of course, one home run does not a power-hitting team make, and although the home team emerged from the second with an 8-3 lead, a game-tying, five-run, fifth-inning Blue Jays uprising off Aaron Small and Ramiro Mendoza was punctuated by a three-run dinger by young non-roster Toronto left fielder Kevin Barker. With the Yankee power lagging, the pitching has been pretty good in the early going, but although fastball/sinker starter Wang coaxed his signature ground outs from the first and last batters he faced in going the first two frames, the nine batters in between stroked six hits good for three runs. Next, although his day ended badly, fans of Aaron Small, in to start the third, should take heart. He allowed just one hit in two innings, and the fact that Joe Torre sent him out for a third means he may still be in the starter mix. An error got his fifth inning off badly, he couldn’t recover, and Mendoza allowed the equalizer on a no-doubt-about-it blast to left.

Disappointed fans of the Pinstripers weren’t down long. The Jays found a pitch Cano could not line hard when they hit him leading off the home fifth, and Kevin Thompson, in for Matsui, continued his amazing spring with a run-scoring double down the right-field line. One out later, designated hitter Andy Phillips followed with his third rbi of the game on a roller to short, and the Yanks had a 10-8 lead. Great pitching took care of the rest. Veteran non-roster righty Scott Erickson delivered five outs with two K’s, and Ron Villone, fresh from having fed Philly’s Ryan Howard a 500-foot home run ball Friday, retired four, whiffing two of his own. Young catcher Will Nieves relieved the sapped-power angst with a liner that thumped off the right field foul screen for an 11-8 edge in the eighth, and potential closer-of-the-future J Brent Cox struck out rookie catcher Curtis Thigpen to close the game in three hours, one minute.

There were some defensive sparklers on both sides. Jays center fielder Miguel Negron nicely tracked Giambi’s sac fly to deep left center in the first, and second baseman Luis Figueroa robbed Kevin Reese of a base hit up the middle in the sixth. On the Yankee side, Giambi scooped two balls in the dirt at first, and Yankee left fielder Thompson, who has had a few shaky moments in the bright sunshine, tracked Bengie Molina’s drive to the wall in left center before the Barker three-run bomb in the fifth. Top honors, however, go to Bombers right fielder Mitch Jones, who nailed second baseman Aaron Hill trying to go first to third on a single to right in the first on a perfect one-hop throw to the glove. Weird play of the game goes to the ball hit by catcher Kelly Stinnett that gave him two hits in the second inning. It struck ump Wally Bell (there were just three this day) and was ruled a dead ball with Stinnett awarded first base.

The people at Legends Field did their usual fine job entertaining the crowd, providing a pregame high school marching band in the outfield. The ponds around the field had waterfowl and turtles aplenty, and the weather was unreal yet again. In the fifth inning, heads turned a bit when the Scoreboard birthday announcements included a six-year-old, and then someone 90 years young. But a senior named Eugenio Millan took top honors on his 105th birthday! That even exceeds what would have happened had brilliant comic actor Lou Costello survived all these years, as he would have reached 100 today. Lou, of course, is most famous now for the comic routine he perfected with straight man Bud Abbott that originated with a puzzled Costello asking, “Who’s on first?” That answer now could be Jason Giambi, perhaps backup Andy Phillips, even big-time prospect Eric Duncan, who stroked his second long double and third hit today. One thing is certain though. We know who’s on second.

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!