No substitute for experience

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Kind of a perfect day for Yankee fans, huh? Their darlings jump into a nice series lead over the Angels, and they even get to revel in a little schadenfreude with the Red Sox being pummeled in Chicago.

You probably already know all you need to about the goings-on in Chicago. About all you need to know about what went on here is that the Yankees jumped on Bartolo Colon early, even as the Angels were doing nothing with Mike Mussina and not enough with the platoon of relievers who followed him to the mound. If you wished to call this 4-2 triumph a Yankee formula win, I wouldn't stop you.

This was a big showcase game for Colon, a 21-game winner who is a prime Cy Young candidate. The portly righthander just could not slam the door on the Yankees in the first inning, and it pretty much turned out to be the ballgame.

It was an odd inning, to be sure. Five pitches into it, he had two outs and no one on. But it took him 20 more pitches to retire the side, and by the time he did, the Yankees had knocked him around for four hits, the biggest being a bases-loaded double by rookie Robinson Cano, who hit a ball to left that veteran Garret Anderson appeared to have a bit of trouble tracking. The ball flew over his outstretched right arm and rolled to the Angels bullpen, scoring Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, and Hideki Matsui, each of whom had singled to right after Colon had carved up Derek Jeter (grounder to third) and Alex Rodriguez (three-pitch punchado) to start the game.

Colon allowed a fourth run in the second, after which he pitched perfectly well. But it was all quixotic, because the Yankees were getting just what they needed from Mike Mussina.

Managers get paid to make decisions, and Joe Torre made a good one when he decided to replace Mussina, who has been battling a sore elbow, with Jaret Wright on Sunday. Oh, sure, Wright was pretty bad against the Red Sox, and the Yankees wound up having to make a 3,000-mile trip after losing that game, but that didn't concern Torre.

''Starting on the road wasn't obviously as much of a problem for us as maybe not having Mike Mussina pitch Game 1, just because of the experience," explained Torre a few hours before the first pitch. And then Mussina went out and made his skipper look good.

''I'm not 'vindicated,' " Torre shrugged in response to a question that included that touchy word. ''It's just baseball. We just wanted Moose, because of his experience, to be No. 1. If Randy [Johnson] were available, it would have been him. Experience is so important, especially when you're starting on the road."

''Joe has enough confidence in me that even if I don't have my best stuff, he'll still send me out there," reasoned Mussina, who pitched 5 2/3 innings of five-hit, shutout baseball before being lifted after pitch No. 98. ''Randy couldn't pitch, because he went Saturday, so it was either me or someone with no postseason experience. I pitched pretty well against these guys earlier this summer. We had a decent game plan, and I knew what to do."

Mussina had missed three weeks worth of starts in September with a cranky elbow. His return start was a success, but he couldn't get out of the second inning in that 17-9 loss in Baltimore, so he didn't exactly take the mound last night brimming with maximum confidence. In fact, you could say he had plenty of doubt.

''Absolutely," he confirmed. ''This was only the third time I've been back to the mound after missing three weeks. One was good, one was not so good. I do know the two extra days helped me. Sure, I had doubts. I didn't know what I was going to get."

What he had was what Angels manager Mike Scioscia termed ''good life on the ball." Scioscia also lauded him for being able to change speeds effectively.

''I'd sum it up as not too bad," declared Mussina. ''I had pretty good command. I had a good breaking ball. I did, I guess, what I was trying to do."

And he did it in pain that will not go away until the 2005 season is over. ''It felt about the same as last time," he said. ''It didn't stop me from doing what I'm trying to do."

He also freely admitted that plain old luck helped him along. For with Juan Rivera on first via a two-out single in the second, Steve Finley ripped one into the right-field corner. The ball would easily have scored Rivera, but the right-field fence in Angel Stadium is similar to the right-field fence at Fenway, which is to say that it's an itty-bitty thing, maybe 4 feet high. The ball bounced into the stands for a ground-rule double, and Rivera was held at third.

Mussina retired Adam Kennedy on a fly to left, and the best Angels chance to score against the righthander was gone.

Torre lifted Mussina after Vladimir Guerrero singled with two away in the sixth.

''We've been going around 100 pitches with him," Torre explained. ''I wasn't sure when I left the dugout. I said, 'I'll give you a little help?' He didn't say anything. He just hung his head, and I took him out."

The assembly line then went from Al Leiter to Tanyon Sturtze (who gave up a solo homer to Bengie Molina) to Tom Gordon and, finally, to You-Know-Who, No. 42. Mariano Rivera was a bit mortal, giving up a run via a Guerrero single, stolen base, and Darin Erstad single in the ninth. But he got the job done. As did they all.

The Big Games have begun. The Yankees are 1-0. The Sawx are 0-1. Doesn't last weekend seem like a lifetime ago?

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.