Orioles 6, Yankees 4

This first week has been disheatening without being catastrophic (for that, see the Astros).

Tomorrow or the next day, Mike Lupica will write that the Yankees are "one A-Rod blast away from being 1-4." That is true enough, but rather irrelevant, when one considers that the Yanks are one A-Rod pop-up away from being 3-2, plus one Josh Phelps fly-out away from being 4-1. Almost every game has been a close-run thing.

What, heading into week two, must Torre attend to?

1. The starting pitching.
2. The starting pitching.

No--really, that's about it. Teams go through bad hitting patches all the time, situations where they fall behind two runs after the fifth and a kind of ennui takes over. Offensively, the Yankees find themselves in this kind of trough. When it happens at the start of the season, it is all anyone can talk about because there's nothing else to measure it against.

It is hard to remember but well to remember that the 1998 Yankees started the season 0-3. These were the Yankees still stinging from a shocking 1997 Divisional Playoff loss to the Cleveland Indians, and starting the season as they did--no kidding--churned the rumors that Joe Torre would be fired soon, if the Yankees did not turn things around. So . . . the Yankees went 125-47 the rest of the way, won the first of three consecutive World Series, and paved the way for Torre, Jeter and Mo to ascend, one day, to the World Series.

The defense will be helped by Matsui's injury. Melky will be an upgrade.

The bullpen, right, now, is the team's biggest strength.

So? So we'll see.