Derek Jeter said it best.

"Everyone keeps talking about our offense, but that doesn't win games; pitching and defense does," Jeter said. "We're not always going to hit every game."

With Chien-Ming Wang on the mound, and the Yankees off to a 4-0 lead, I was pretty confident in the game last night. Matsui hit his second home run of the season, and Sheff smoked a laser into the leftfield stands for his 450th career home run. That home run from Sheff was a three run blast. It had the makings of the opening night game. But it all came apart due in part to an error by Jeter in the fourth, which he bobbled it off his face (yes, his face), and tried to shovel it to Cano, led to the A's rallying for three runs. The A's tied it up in the 5th.

It stayed tied until the 8th inning when Wright gave up a leadoff triple to Milton Bradley. Payton up next hits a grounder to Cano, who boots it, and allows Bradley to score the go ahead run. Seems like when the errors come it means doom and gloom to the pitcher, as Wright immediately gave up back-to-back singles to Kendall and Scutaro. The A's took a 6-4 lead. Myers comes in strikes out Kotsay. Myers is replaced by Flash's replacement Farnsworth. A wild pitch, and a walk loads up the bases for Frank Thomas who blasts a double into deep center to score three more runs to make it 9-4 A's. Farnsworth! Don't make me start shouting your name in disgust as I once did Heredia's.

Sloppy defense and sloppy pitching will doom you every time. I'm still trying to make sense of the way Torre is handling the bullpen. Am I looking for fault from Torre? Not at this point. Just some putrid pitching. If Farnsworth doesn't come around by the time they return to Yankee stadium, expect a Loaiza type welcoming.

Today the Yanks are off, but play resumes tomorrow night as Shawn Chacon takes on Kelvim Escobar in opening the series against the Angels in Los Angeles, make that Anaheim, or how about just Angel Stadium of Anaheim. Game time is 10:05pm ET