CC Sabathia couldn’t command his fastball in yesterday’s season opener, and though the Yankee offense made a valiant attempt to dig out of the early hole their new ace put them in, they fell just short. Then the bullpen allowed things to unravel.

Sabathia struggled from the very beginning, opening his Yankee career by allowing a single to Brian Roberts, bouncing a wild pitch to move Roberts to second, and issuing a four-pitch walk to Adam Jones. Another wild pitch moved the runners to second and third with just one out, but Sabathia got out of that jam with a couple of ground ball outs.

Sabathia worked a 1-2-3 second, but started the third by giving up a leadoff single to Cesar Izturis on a 3-1 pitch and walking Roberts. Adam Jones tried to bunt the runners up on the first pitch he saw from Sabathia, but after bunting the first pitch foul, swung away and crushed a second-pitch fastball to the right-field gap for a triple, plating both runners. Jones then scored himself on a sac fly.

A slick 4-6-3 double play got Sabathia out of another jam in the fourth after he put runners on the corners with one out, but he wasn’t so lucky in the fifth. Roberts led off that inning with a soaring ground-rule double just beyond Brett Gardner’s reach in the right-field gap. After that, the Orioles bled him, scoring three more runs without getting another ball out of the infield.

Jones followed Roberts’ double with a single that tipped off the glove of a diving Cody Ransom, who had been playing in to guard against the bunt. With runners on the corners, Nick Markakis hit a tapper on a hit-and-run to the vacated shortstop position. Derek Jeter was able to get to the ball, but not in time to get an out. That scored Roberts. Melvin Mora followed with a well-hit ball down the left-field line that Ransom was able stop, but didn’t field cleanly, allowing Mora to reach with a bases-loading single. Aubrey Huff then plated Jones and advanced the other runners with a groundout to Cano. With first base open, Joe Girardi had Sabathia intentionally walk righty Ty Wigginton to pitch to lefty Luke Scott with two outs and a force at every base. Sabathia walked Scott, ending his Yankee debut with this line: 4 1/3 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 5 BB, 0 K.

Sabathia threw just 52 percent of his 96 pitches for strikes, and that was the extent of his problem. He got eight of his 13 outs on the ground, and of the eight hits he allowed, six were singles, three of which didn’t leave the infield. Sabathia wasn’t getting killed, he just couldn’t throw strikes.

During the game, Sabathia was seen in the dugout putting a large heating pad under his jacket, raising concerns about a possible oblique injury (Sabathia’s only major league DL stay was the result of an oblique strain suffered on Opening Day in 2006). After the game, Sabathia, his manager, and his catcher all said he felt fine, he just couldn’t find his rhythm.

The Yankee offense, meanwhile, stranded leadoff runners in the first and second innings, but got on the board first in the third when Brett Gardner, playing the part of secondary leadoff man from the ninth spot in the order, slapped a leadoff single the other way, went first-to-third when Derek Jeter delivered a perfect hit-and-run single through the vacated shortstop position, and scored on a Johnny Damon sac fly.

After stranding a two-out triple by Johnny Damon in the fifth, the Yankees drew closer in the sixth against a tiring Jeremy Guthrie. Jorge Posada started that inning off by homering to dead center on the first pitch he saw. Robinson Cano followed that with a walk and was subsequently allowed to score on Xavier Nady’s ground-rule double. That cut the Orioles lead in half at 6-3 and left Nady on second with none out, but Ransom and Gardner failed to advance him. Jeter followed those two with a groundball single to the left of second base, but a diving Cesar Izturis kept the ball from reaching the outfield. By the time Izturis got to the ball third-base coach Rob Thomson had already waived Xavier Nady home, and when Thomson threw up the stop sign, Nady found himself stranded off third base where he was tagged out to end the inning.

Facing Chris Ray in the seventh, Damon led off with a single and scored on Hideki Matsui’s two-run home run which brought the Yankees within one at 6-5. Posada and Cano followed Matsui with a walk and a single, the latter off lefty Jamie Walker, but righty Denis Sarfate got Nady to hit into an inning ending double play to strand both runners.

With the Yankees trailing by just a run, the turning point of the game came in the eighth inning. Down 6-5 with righty Jim Johnson on the mound for the Orioles, Girardi sent Nick Swisher up to pinch-hit for righty Cody Ransom, who was scheduled to lead off the inning. Swisher delivered a ground rule double down the left field line and was pinch-run for by Ramiro Peña, who thus made his major league debut. Gardner bunted Peña to third for the top of the order, but Jeter, needing only to get the ball into the outfield, topped a ball to shortstop, and after Damon drew a walk, Mark Teixeira capped an awful day at the plate with an inning-ending groundout, stranding the tying run.

Jonathan Albaladejo had relieved Sabathia with the bases loaded and one out in the fifth and escaped the jam without further damage when Greg Zaun flied out to center and Brett Gardner threw out a tagging Melvin Mora at home thanks in part to a fine block of the plate by Jorge Posada (though replays showed that Mora still might have been safe). Albaladejo then gave up singles to two of the three batters he faced in the sixth, but picked Brian Roberts off first and passed the baton to Phil Coke, who came in and got lefty Nick Markakis to ground out.

Coke faced the minimum in the seventh (erasing a leadoff walk with a double play off the bat of lefty Aubrey Huff), but after striking out lefty Luke Scott to start the bottom of the eighth, gave up a double to switch-hitter Gregg Zaun (who smoked the ball all afternoon) and a shocking home run to light-hitting switch-hitter Cesar Izturis, who had homered just twice in the last three seasons combined.

Girardi then replaced Coke with Brian Bruney, but after getting the first man he faced to groundout, Bruney walked Adam Jones, gave up a single to Markakis, and moved the runners up on a wild pitch that sailed high, tipped off Jorge Posada’s glove, hit the screen behind home, then bizarrely rolled along the top of the retaining wall toward the home dugout. That wild pitch was the third ball in a four-pitch walk to Mora that loaded the bases.

Girardi then called on Damaso Marte to face lefty Aubrey Huff, but Huff doubled into the right-field gap to plate two more runs, extending the Orioles lead to the eventual 10-5 final score.

It was obviously a disappointing day for the Yankees and for CC Sabathia. It was also an afternoon to forget for Mark Teixeira, who despite some nice plays in the field, went 0-for-4 with a walk, with the free pass coming on a pitch that looked like a high strike to me, and was loudly booed at every opportunity by the fans of his hometown team.

More encouraging were the performances of the comeback kids. Posada and Matsui both homered. Posada added a walk and fired a strike to second base on the only stolen base attempt against him (though, on that particular attempt, Izturis had the base stolen as he had taken five strides toward second before Sabathia even released the ball toward home). Robinson Cano singled and walked twice (!) in five trips. Nick Swisher and Xavier Nady both delivered ground-rule doubles, and Nady also drew a walk (though I was displeased by the fact that he just stood around waiting to be tagged out when caught off third base in the sixth, even if he had a 98 percent chance of being thrown out, he should have forced the action by continuing to run home). Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon were a combined 5-for-8 with a walk, and Brett Gardner did his part by scoring the first run of the game, then later executing a bunt to set up another (despite the fact that the latter wasn’t cashed in).

That’s a lot of positives for a 10-5 loss, and I’m not worried about Sabathia or Teixeira. If there was one alarm bell that went off yesterday, it was triggered by the performance of the bullpen, which combined for this line: 3 2/3 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 1 HR, 3 BB, 2 K. Bruney, who had a rough spring, threw just 8 of his 17 pitches for strikes. Damaso Marte, who hadn’t looked sharp in Flordia either, threw just five of 10 for strikes and gave up a game-breaking double to the only lefty he faced. Coke and Albaladejo were sharper, but Albaladejo got two of his four outs on a pickoff and an outfield assist, and Coke looked like a strict LOOGY as he retired each of the three lefties he faced, but just one of the four righties.

That said, my biggest concern entering the season was the strength of the offense, and though they were facing a poor pitching team and stranded 11 runners, including the tying run on third base with less than two outs in the eighth, they still plated five runs on 11 hits, including five extra-base hits by five different hitters, and six walks. There are worse ways to open a season.

Notes:

• The Yankees reserves and coaches were introduced to a loop from Beck’s “Loser.” The starters then entered to the “Imperial March,” an obvious “Evil Empire” reference and a suitable switch on the good guys/bad guys Star Wars themes the Yankees use at home. In fact, at Friday night’s game against the Cubs, I was thinking that the Yankees should enter to the “Imperial March” at home as well. They are the evil empire; they should embrace it.
• The Orioles came out through an arch of orange balloons in center field and ran down a big orange runway to line up between first and second base (the Yankees lined up between second and third).
• Vice President Joe Biden threw out the first pitch from the front of the mound. It sailed high to former Yankee and current Baltimore backup catcher Chad Moeller.
• The new stadium patch on the back of the Yankees’ caps is going to take some getting used to.
• The Orioles have made some nice, subtle changes to their uniforms, replacing the black piping on the sleeves and pants with an orange stripe outlined in black and adding a patch on the left sleeve that features the colors of the Maryland flag inside an orange circle that says “Baltimore Orioles.”
• The game was not sold out, perhaps because the O’s tied Opening Day tickets to a multi-game package in part to keep Yankee fans from dominating the crowd. It worked; there were several “Yankees Suck” and “Yankee Go Home” chants that went unanswered and Mark Teixeira was booed loudly throughout the game, though he and his teammates seemed tickled by the crowd response during the introductions.