BIG SPENDING LEAVES 'EM SPENT.

Byline: Bob Keisser Staff Writer

Now the Yankees can catch up on their sleep. As long as they enjoy blood-red nightmares that last until, ohh, at least March.

For all their intimidating history and obscene spending, the pinstripers are going to have a hard time living down the way they lost Game 5 of the A.L. Division Series against the Angels Monday night, 5-3, before 45,133 at Anaheim Stadium.

They staked Mike Mussina to a 2-0 lead. Angels' Cy Young candidate Bartolo Colon left the game in the second with a lame shoulder, and in his place was a rookie who began the season in Arkansas.

And then they chucked the game away as if they were, well, the Dodgers.

The Angels are going to Chicago for the American League Championship Series that begins tonight, and as we all know, Angels do not require sleep. Anyone who saw the way the Angels win the 2002 World Series, too, was hardly surprised to see the way they won Game 5 Monday night.

Down early? The Angels trailed the Giants by five runs in Game 6 of the World Series three years ago. Rookie on the mound? Ervin Santana Monday didn't do anything that Angels fans didn't see then-rookies John Lackey, Brendan Donnelly and Frankie Rodriguez do in the 4-1 Game 7 win in 2002.

And anyone who has watched the way the Angels have played against the Yankees for several years, most notably since Mike Scioscia became manager, knew they wouldn't be intimidated. Pinstripes are nothing more than a thread in a suit to the Angels.

If anyone was intimidated Monday, it was George Steinbrenner(U1)s team, with an emphasis on ``team.''

Before the Yankees left New York for Game 5, The Boss expressed his satisfaction with the 3-2 Game 4 win but also delivered a cryptic ``It's in the manager's hands'' in reference to Game 5.

Sorry, Boss, but the players, not manager Joe Torre, took the game out of their own hands.

It wasn't Torre who walked Steve Finley, whose 2005 season has mirrored the ABC hit show ``Lost,'' with two outs and a runner on first in the second with the Yankees leading 2-1. That was starting pitcher Mike Mussina.

It wasn't Torre who bumped and fell in the right field dusk a batter later. That was Bubba Crosby and Gary Sheffield, turning what should have been a well-hit but inning-ending deep fly out into Adam Kennedy's triple and a 3-2 Angels lead. How fitting in 2005: Two ex-Dodgers (Crosby had 12 at-bats with the Bums in 2003) who weren't on the same page.

``If either of them hadn't been there, the ball is caught,'' Mussina said afterwards. ``If it's caught, it's three out. Instead it's two runs. It was obviously too loud to hear anything. It's an event that happens a couple of times a season. If it happens in June or August, no one notices, but when it happens in October. ...''

It wasn't Torre who let Bengie Molina's flare in the third fall in front of him in the Angels' two-run third inning that made it 5-2. That was Sheffield again. Operation Shutdown never looked so good in greater Los Angeles.

It wasn't Torre who ran inside the baseline and was called out for runner's interference - that was Robinson Cano - negating a third-strike wild pitch that would have loaded the bases in the fifth.

The message here is that you can try to buy a pennant, and occasionally succeed. But it's not automatic, not even when you spend more than $200 million.

Especially when playing a team that plays baseball the old-fashioned way like the Angels do, with discipline, earning everything that comes their way and getting great performances from players who are rarely in the spotlight.