Thank god it finally got warm.

That was about the only solace a subdued Red Sox crowd had on Monday night, when the Olde Towne Team hosted their arch rivals from New York for the first time this season. The winter was the worst on record, and the spring was cold as well--in the fifties daytimes, forties with frost warnings many nights, deep into May. But the projected high for the afternoon was seventy four, and in reality inched up to eighty in the city.

So when the onslaught of Yankees offense began in the first inning, the Sox faithful took it calmly. Balmy breezes blew, the skyline turned gold, it was too beautiful an evening to be ruined by something so capricious as ill-luck.

Casey Fossum took the hill with a 4-1 record, but Alfonso Soriano hit the first pitch he saw through the infield for a hit. Derek Jeter stepped in next and hit the first pitch he saw as well, popped foul. Except it wasn't. It bounced just fair on the first base line, out of the reach of a sprinting Damian Jackson, and bounced into the seats for a ground rule double. Thus with men on second and third, Jason Giambi came to the plate. He hit the second pitch he saw up the middle, a squibber off the end of the bat, that beat the shift and scored two. The Yankees offense has been anemic of late. But four pitches, two runs down, and no outs...? One could easily argue that they were all lucky hits.

The same could not be said of the bases-clearing triple that Raul Mondesi hit later in the inning. With one out, Fossum loaded them up with a single to Hideki Matsui, and a walk to Jorge Posada--just in time for the Yankees' hottest hitter to come to the plate. Mondesi banged a hard one off the Green Monster, Damon played it too close to the wall and it caromed away from him. Even the slow-footed Posada scored from first, and the aggressive base-runner Mondesi ended up on third well in front of the throw. The Yankees sent ten men to the plate in the first, scoring five runs on five hits.

After that, Fossum was great, allowing only one hit in the next five inning. But David Wells was better. The Sox got one run back immediately, as Johnny Damon led off with a double. Todd Walker grounded out, and up came Nomar. Nomar singled but Damon was held at third by a strong throw from... (damn, it was either Matsui or Mondesi, the new M&M boys!) ... so Manny Ramirez stepped to the plate with two men on. He hit a hard shot right at Soriano, who snared the ball, ran to tag the evasive Nomar, and then threw off balance to first to try to double up Ramirez. It was the wrong move by Soriano, who could have easily gone the routine way for a 4-6-3 DP to end the inning without giving up a run. But Nomar's little dance out of the baseline threw him off and Sori's throw pulled Giambi wide. Call it a fielder's choice--the wrong choice--and a run scored.

After that there was not much excitement in the middle innings. Damon tripled with two out in the fifth, but the Yankees never felt threatened. Yankees fans never did, either (except perhaps those guys sitting by the Pesky Pole, about six of them, who got into a huge fistfight they actually stopped the game for...), and Red Sox fans did not give much of a rise, either. Mostly we talked about how nice the weather was. The breeze began to whip up but it was not chilly.

In the late innings the Sox almost made it interesting, scoring one in the eighth and one in the ninth, off Yankee relievers who have not quite earned the trust of the fans, Antonio Osuna, Chris Hammond, and Jason Anderson. I say "almost" because the Yanks got two in the eighth also, off a struggling Jason Shiel who walked five in 1 2/3 (two intentionally).

Some notes about these pitchers. Osuna made an impression on many fans during batting practice. Some kids in the bleachers had strung a glove on a long piece of rope and lowered it down from the railing to where a fielder could reach it. They had another rope with a pen on it. From the centerfield bleachers down to field level is probably fifty feet at least. Osuna finally went over to see what they were all about, autographed the glove. Then he showed them he had a ball for them, too, and put it in the glove. The ball fell out on the way up, of course, so Osuna tried to throw it into the glove. Eventually they pulled the glove all the way up and he was just trying to toss the ball up to them so they could catch it. Throw, miss. Throw, miss, Throw, miss. Osuna was tireless, throwing the ball twenty or thirty times before the kid finally grabbed it, to much applause.

Jason Shiel struggled with his control, mostly. The men he did not walk were mostly outs, except for Mondesi, who hit a wall ball single, tried to stretch it into a double, and was thrown out by a mile, and Derek Jeter, who faced him with the bases loaded. To Jeter, he finally threw strikes, but Derek Jeter hits better with two strikes on him than just about anyone in the American League. So when he went 0-2, you almost felt that now Derek had Shiel right where he wanted him. Shiel then threw balls inside and got Jeter to pull one to third, but just foul. The next pitch was fouled to the right and you felt if Shiel tried to pitch him outside, Jeter was going to stroke one of his patented hits to right field. Which is exactly what he then did. Two runs scored. Shiel did strike Jeter out the inning before, but you can't expect to let him see so many pitches and him not eventually capitalize on a mistake. The at bat where Jeter struck out had a funny play in it, though. Soriano had walked and then stole second. As usual he was taking a large lead off second. On a return throw from catcher Mirabelli to Shiel, they pulled a trick play by actually making the throw to second to try to catch Soriano off the bag, but he was too quick, saw it, and just made it back.

Jason Anderson came in to close the game. Not a save situation, but a pressure situation nonetheless. A young, wet behind the ears lefty sidewinder named Randy Choate a few years back earned the nickname Randy "Choke" forever in Boston when some of his warmup pitches sailed to the backstop, and then some in the game. Choate had never displayed such wildness before, and although he had sporadic struggles with the strike zone, was never that wild again. Perhaps Joe Torre, with the hard-throwing righty Anderson, wanted to see if the same kind of cracks would appear. They didn't. Anderson got the final two outs of the ninth by retiring Boston's best-loved hitters: Nomar on a fly ball (that brought Damon in from third--he had tripled again!) and Manny Ramirez on a pop up to first. Not too shabby.

So while Boston fans were saying, thank goodness the weather warmed up, Yankees fans were saying thank goodness the team got hot! Just in time to face Pedro tomorrow...