New York, New York

"A bad pitch to the wrong guy," Foulke said.

Jeter swung, and Jeter rounded the bases. His opposite-field, walkoff shot -- the first regular-

season walkoff homer of his career -- sent the Yankees to a 4-3 win and the 54,690 who skipped work or school into a state of ecstasy. The Sox fell to 0-2 and send Tim Wakefield to the mound today in a sweep situation for the Yankees, who in all their gluttonous splendor will give the ball to Mike Mussina. "We escaped today," said Yankees manager Joe Torre.

They did, but the Yankees accomplished more than that, showing they can get to Foulke. He held them to a single hit, and fanned six, in six awesome innings in the American League Championship Series last October. He'd gone 11 playoff appearances and 29 appearances last season, a total of 40 games, without taking a loss.

The last time he was beaten, in fact, was by this same team, in Fenway Park, July 23, 2004, on a ninth-inning RBI single by Alex Rodriguez.

"It's tough to swallow," said Foulke, who, like Rivera, hadn't pitched since Thursday. "We didn't play very well [Sunday]. We put some runs up. To go out there and throw it away, it's hard to walk in the clubhouse after that."

That's because, after so much went so wrong in the 9-2 opener Sunday night, the Sox had something of a late-inning comeback in the making. The bullpen had picked up Matt Clement, pitching 3 2/3 innings of one-hit, one-walk baseball.

John Halama, who'd relieved Clement in the fifth, had plunked Jason Giambi to load the bases, then escaped with a double play off the bat of Bernie Williams. Alan Embree had come in in the seventh and gotten two outs, one on a strikeout of Giambi, while touching 95 on the gun. Foulke had sent down Williams, Tino Martinez, and Tony Womack in order to end the eighth.

And Varitek, hitting seventh, had picked up the offense, lining a Rivera cutter into Row 1 of the right-field bleachers, tying the game at 3-3.