Jackson jumped ahead of Posada in the ball-strike count, 1-2, and Posada was just fighting to stay alive.

O'Neill fouled off one pitch after another, always to the left side of the field with defensive swings, and slowly, the ball-strike count turned in his favor.

When the ball-strike count favored her, she was solid and concentrated better.

His ball-strike counts were fine, but something was different.

Within the framework of the Yankees' revamped attack, Ventura's ability to work the ball-strike count, draw walks and reach base will be enough.

On Friday night, Franco lost track of the ball-strike count, thinking it was 1-1 when it was 0-2.

Cone (3-11) lacked command and good stuff; he almost never threw his slider tonight, and continually worked behind in the ball-strike count.

Torre wanted to see Clemens throw more strikes today, get ahead in the ball-strike count and exploit hitters.

But Torre also mentioned how often pitchers work deep into ball-strike counts.

The base runners make their guesses mostly based on the ball-strike count, and what they know about the pitcher and the hitter.