Lisa Olson Mlb

NEW YORK – Finally, there was life in Ryan Howard's bat, energy in his words. "Come on man, let's go," he shouted upon crossing the plate, as if adding a hardy exclamation point to his two-run homer in the sixth inning would spark whatever the defending champions had been missing since they took a brief World Series lead way back in October.

The Philadelphia Phillies brought the bravado, for sure. On the eve of the Fall Classic, Jimmy Rollins made one of his many extemporaneous observations, saying on the Jay Leno Show, of all places, "If we're nice, we'll let it go six. But I'm thinking five. Close it out at home." So here's the first lesson, to any budding big leaguers: try not to mouth off when playing the wealthiest, hungriest, most talent-stacked team on the planet.

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NEW YORK -- The good A.J. Burnett showed up at Yankee Stadium Thursday night. Scratch that, this wasn't just the good Burnett on the mound, his pitches dancing across every tiny speck of the plate's corner, his psyche remaining as calm as a summer day. This was a great Burnett, an imposing Burnett, a Burnett who managed to keep his evil side stowed away in the broom closet for one entire game.

And what a game it was, with Burnett and Philadelphia starter Pedro Martinez daring each other to blink first, to crack slightly, to make consecutive bad pitches. When it was over, when Burnett and the Yankees had held tight to a 3-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 2 of the World Series, New York manager Joe Girardi still looked as if you could bounce subway tokens off the bulging veins in his neck.

"Extremely impressive. [Burnett] was great tonight," said Girardi, breathing slightly easier now that the Yankees can head down the turnpike with the World Series tied 1-1, and his team's bats itching to break out in Philadelphia's warm weather.

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NEW YORK -- Set the clock, nudge awake the kids. There might not be a more fascinating evening in sports this year than Thursday night, when Pedro Martinez takes the mound at Yankee Stadium and flips the World Series on its rump.

Most anything Pedro does is must-watch theater. He turned a routine press conference before Wednesday's Game 1 into an astonishing revival session that included Martinez proclaiming he "at times [is] the most influential player that ever stepped in Yankee Stadium" and featured his first in-depth, blow-by-blow look back at his 2003 tussle with Don Zimmer. It was almost as if Martinez was craftily writing his own prelude to whatever might happen in Game 2, when he attempts to lift Philadelphia to a 2-0 Series lead.

Will Pedro's first World Series pitch since 2004 (a year that still makes Yankee fans' skin crawl) serve as a reminder to Derek Jeter that some things never change? More delicious, how will Pedro treat Alex Rodriguez? With deference owed a man who has finally (we think) proven October no longer makes him flinch? Or will Pedro buzz them both, buzz them all, and quickly silence the crowd's mocking chants?

NEW YORK -- The Angels will be haunted all season by their failure to do the little things correctly, such as not treating the baseball as if it were a ripe pumpkin. The Yankees, especially the unrivaled core four, played and then celebrated as if they had been there before, even if it has taken six long years for them to figure the way back.

Therein lies the difference between going home and booking a trip to the World Series, in two quick sentences. On a night when Andy Pettitte's cutter was nearly as biting as it was in 1996 when he pitched one of the greatest playoff games in Yankee history, the Angels tussled through more misplays in a series plagued with them. On a night when Mariano Rivera reached deep for a six-out save, the Angels strangled all opportunities to extend the American League Championship Series into a Game 7. They clumsily ran the bases, made some atrocious errors, stranded more runners. And the manager probably has a move or two he'd like to have back in the Yankees' 5-2 win that crushed the Angels' postseason and jump-started a New York-Philadelphia World Series.

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NEW YORK -- Of course it would end this way, in such classic, expected fashion. What, you didn't have Jerry Hairston Jr. scoring the winning run for the Yankees in the bottom of the 13th inning, after the Angel infield completely lost its heads? Join the club with millions of other baseball fans who watched Saturday's American League Championship Series melt into Sunday morning, and still aren't sure how and why this astonishing Game 2 concluded as it did.

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NEW YORK – This is how it ends, in the Angels' perfect little world. They steal their share of bases, acts of defiance that come so naturally, and the starting rotation hands the ball over to the bullpen, which doesn't fall apart. Mike Scioscia, the crafty former catcher who is fluent with quips and stingy when it comes to making managerial mistakes, probably allows a tear or three to leak as his players drench him with celebratory bubbly.

This is for Nick, the Angels will say, in between bursts of hugs and laughter, and they'll tell his story to anyone who asks. The Angels believe his spirit is with them, lingering, guiding them through this remarkable season. "Oh yes, he's cheering for us," Bobby Abreu, the Angel outfielder, was saying Thursday afternoon, as he took shelter in a soggy Yankee Stadium. "We keep him with us here and here."

NEW YORK -- There had to be close to 50 bodies pressed together in the corner of the Yankees' clubhouse, cameras bumping heads and notebooks battling microphones. The team has a perfectly spacious interview room around the corner, a nice podium where an athlete can stretch and pontificate without a bunch of sweaty reporters pushing close enough to see his nose hairs.

But Alex Rodriguez was perfectly happy to make his way through the chaotic crush and face the media without a buffer. Someone fired a question and, from the back of the pack, all we could make out was, "Jetes ...CC ... they were the story." What about his two RBI singles that twice extended the Yankee lead? "Felt good ... team effort ... great pitching from CC." Was the postseason monkey off his back? "Not about me ... good to contribute ... hey, no need to shove each other."

NEW YORK -- It was bound to happen, probably sooner before later. The Minnesota Twins couldn't keep flying high on adrenaline and spunk, could they? This was a mismatch of gargantuan proportions, the mighty uber-rich Yankees against a sweet little team from the Midwest that barely squeaked into the playoffs at the very last second. The Twins couldn't possibly continue to rock and shock the baseball world, could they?

Not on this night, no. Not with CC Sabathia, the Yankees ace, rested and frothing at the chance to prove he can indeed carry the sport's wealthiest, most stacked club all the way to the finish line. Not with Derek Jeter, Captain America, eager to prove last season's postseason absence was an embarrassing, once-in-his-lifetime fluke.

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NEW YORK -- Huge breaking news from Yankee camp: Jorge Posada is furious he won't be catching A.J. Burnett in Game 2 of the playoffs. No, wait, scratch that, now Posada is acting like an unruffled veteran, calmly saying "it's all about the team," and so it's over to Joe Girardi, to ascertain why the manager picked such a fine time to cause so much hyperventilating around what had been the most stable team in baseball.

By choosing to start Jose Molina and not Posada behind the plate Friday when Burnett makes his first ALDS start for the Yankees against the remarkable Minnesota Twins, Girardi proved he's neither sentimental nor averse to taking an unpopular risk. Of course, the Posada-Burnett battery has sometimes looked as uncomfortable as Jon and Kate sitting on the couch together, and to pair the fiery catcher again with the streaky pitcher at this juncture would be a mighty large gamble. Still, no matter how sensible, stat-driven Girardi's decision might be, it landed with a considerable thump.

NEW YORK -- Just when you think you've seen everything there is to see in baseball, a second baseman shuffles his body just a tiny bit to his right and bedlam breaks out. It was only a few inches, mind you, almost an unconscious move choreographed by Eric Bruntlett as he tried to shake the cobwebs from his head.

He'd already made an error in the bottom of the ninth, clumsily booting the ball and allowing the hapless Mets to hang in. Bruntlett was also on the end of what was generously called an infield single, and now the Mets had two runners on base, the winning run at the plate, and Philadelphia closer Brad Lidge was flirting with another meltdown.

A few inches. That's the gap between incredulous rub-your-eyes wonder and here-we-go-again exasperation. A few seconds. That's the time it took to once again seal the disparities between baseball's defending champions and this season's cursed losers.

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