Davidoff: After loss, Yankees are lucky Boss isn't in charge

BOSTON

Ran into a few Yankees at their hotel gym Monday, and you wouldn't have known whether they were 1-0 or 0-1. All smiles, as should've been the case. What's wrong with enjoying a rare day off in sunny Beantown?

But such a scene of tranquility evoked an image of what would've happened on a day like this, say, 20 or 30 years ago. If the Yankees had blown not one lead but two - to the hated Red Sox, at the disheveled Fenway Park, with a key new reliever falling on his face.

Some high school in Sudbury might have found itself with some guests. Certainly, George Steinbrenner wouldn't have allowed his employees to rest. An off-day workout would've been a guarantee.

And so, while there are plenty of times to lament that The Boss is no longer in his prime, today is not one of them.

"You don't make too much out of one game, either way," Joe Girardi told reporters late Sunday night after the Yankees' 9-7 loss to the Sawx. "If [the relievers] had thrown all zeroes, you don't make too much of it. It's a long season. It's just one game."

Perfectly sound logic. And the perfect contrast to this: "They haven't won a thing yet. They're 0-1, behind the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in our division right now. Maybe this is a little shocker. Maybe they'll come back a little more focused."

That's what The Boss told Newsday's David Lennon on April 2, 1998, after watching his Yankees (with Girardi as the catcher) open their campaign with a 4-1 loss to the Angels. That season, you may recall, didn't turn out too badly.

When the Yankees dropped the first two games of 1985 at Fenway, Steinbrenner described the series finale as a "crucial game." They lost that one, too, although they recovered to make a run at a playoff spot.

Sunday night's game was ugly, no doubt, and an especially inauspicious debut for Chan Ho Park. Brian Cashman expanded his budget to sign Park because he felt he couldn't turn away from the reasonable asking price of $1.2 million. What we'll find out, over the long haul, is whether Park can pitch as well in the American League as he did in the National League.

The other source of concern, to me? Joba Chamberlain. He just didn't look right. After switching from starter to reliever late in spring training, even though the Yankees pretty much knew at camp's outset that Joba would pitch out of the bullpen, perhaps Joba's head is spinning. Or maybe he's still reluctant to air it out for fear of injury.

But we've learned that bullpens need time to form. As do teams, as a whole. And while The Boss used to cite a song that Tommy Tune performed on Broadway - "It's not where you start, it's where you finish" - he occasionally forgot that mantra.

"We have a history of not playing well the first few weeks," Gene Michael, a Yankees special adviser and two-time former general manager and manager, said Monday. "I'd always tell George, 'We're an older team. We're like a locomotive. It takes time to get us going.' "

The Yankees are ridiculously talented, and even in Sunday's loss, you saw positive signs from newcomer Curtis Granderson and returnee Nick Johnson, and from new leftfielder Brett Gardner. Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada still appear to be pretty good, too.

If they somehow miss the playoffs, it won't be because they didn't practice on April 5.