By RICK CARPINIELLO
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

NEW YORK - You get to the ballpark early, and whether it be Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park, you expect that the last swing, or the last pitch, will decide the game.

That is just part of the rivalry, that feeling and buzz that surrounds either place leading up to every game, and it is what sets New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox apart from anything else, including Yankees-New York Mets.

The whole mural of Yankees-Red Sox looks and feels that way, too. You think about how these teams beat each other over the head last season, how they traded black eyes and fat lips during a season series which ended up 10 games for the Yankees, nine for the Sox. Then you can't help but think of the ALCS, which really did come down to the final moment, ended on that unlikely, historic, almost mythical home run by Aaron Boone.

Most of the time, of course, it doesn't come down to last out, the last hit, or even the last couple of innings.

Most of the time it is over early, as was the case under a black, October-like sky Tuesday night when the Yankees scored one in the second inning, three in the third, three in the fourth and two in the fifth as Boston booted the ball around like Mia Hamm. As it was in the six Red Sox victories in seven games against the Yankees in April.

So the Yankees are already better this time around than they were last time the Red Sox visited, when they were swept, embarrassingly, three in a row; or the last time they were in Fenway, where they dropped three of four.

Joe Torre, the Yankees manager, didn't need the romp over the Red Sox to know that the Yankees are better now than they were in April.

"The fact that, after falling so far behind, we've played better and we're in first place right now is probably more significant than the nature of the games we lost (to Boston)," Torre said.

Torre was asked about the story in one of the papers, that George Steinbrenner feels it's time for payback for those six losses in seven games in April. At first he refused comment. Then the question was re-worded, as to whether these are games the Yankees must win.

"I manage 162 games and whether it's the Mets, the Red Sox or Detroit, you prepare your club to win," Torre said. "And if I felt I needed to beat one team more so than I needed to beat another one, then I think I'm cheating myself and my ballclub against a team I'm not supposed to beat as soundly or as much."

That's all well and good, but Torre has stated his dislike for interleague games, and called the sandwiching series against the Mets "exhibition games."

These are different. These are the 19 games in the 162-game season that get you excited. You can't compare Yankees-Tigers to this. You can't compare Yankees-Dodgers - as good as that was - to this. You can't compare Yankees-Mets to this. No way.

The manager who always seems to be right said last year, correctly so, that the AL East championship would not be decided in the games between the Yankees and Red Sox, but rather by how either or both teams played against the rest of the league. He was right, again, because the Yankees won the East by beating everybody else down the stretch, after winning 10 of 19 against the Sox.

Torre talked before the game about how the doubleheader sweep of the Mets Sunday, after the Mets won the opener, showed him something.

"Hopefully that's a sign that we play well under pressure," he said. "We certainly didn't play well under pressure against these guys a couple of months ago."

A couple of months ago was shortly after the Yankees returned from that needless, exhausting regular-season "exhibition-feel" opener in Japan, which Torre calls "an excuse." A couple of months ago, Alex Rodriguez was missing in action and Derek Jeter was about to go into his career-worst slump. A couple of months ago, the Red Sox simply outpitched the Yankees, whose only win came against Derek Lowe, Tuesday night's starter and loser.

A couple of months ago, the Yankees also faced a crunch of a decision. They had rookie Alex Graman scheduled to pitch the series finale against Pedro Martinez, coming off a bad loss. Instead, Torre chose to start Javier Vazquez on three days rest. Vazquez was beaten 2-0 by Martinez.

This series will end with rookie Brad Halsey against Martinez Thursday, unless Kevin Brown makes some miraculous recovery, or unless Torre can come up with another solution.

Torre, though, seems resolved to that matchup. Certainly, this win lessens the desperation.

He also wants his guys to relax a bit, saying he thinks they were too tense, and that the tension was partly his fault in talking about how important those games against the Red Sox were.

"I'm thinking they were just over-doing, I really do," Torre said. "I hope, my theory is, when they were struggling they looked around and all of a sudden found people that were supporting them, and that was their teammates. It takes time to develop that personality. Hopefully that negative run had a positive effect. At least it did playing everybody else. We still have to play (Boston) and we still have to, obviously, prove we can beat them because I think that's important for us.

"We'll evaluate this series after each game. ... It's still the Red Sox and it still gets everybody's attention whether it's here or in Fenway. Baseball is unlike any other sport because you play it every day and it's tough to try to get yourself up to a level you can't maintain. You've got to get yourself to a good level of play and stay there, but not sky high. If you get sky high, it's very difficult to maintain."

How, though, do they not get sky high for this?