Aftertaste

As usual, the yanks responded well to the embarassment in cleveland, winning three in a row. The outstanding effect I have noticed in the ensuing games has been a change in baserunning strategy, which must have come from Torre himself. The Yankees seem at last unwilling to settle for station to station play. They've been take the extra base at every opportunity. I could be wrong but I think this reflects a change in overall attitude. They have played the last 3 games as if they didn't expect to win, which is also to say they didn't play to avoid losing. I don't necessarly believe much good will come of the latest Royal addition, Guil, but he does run the bases with the same sort of abandon as Crosby. Don't go buying Wright off tonight's performance, though, he's had some very good starts against T.B. in the past. It doesn't translate into sustained excellence. Still only 3 behind boston with no less than 4 starters missing is pretty fortunate.

Heard an interview with Cashman today. He is apparently the only man in america who doesn't question Pavano's mettle. On the plus side, he sounds quite categorical about keeping Phillip Hughes, though there doesn't seem much chance they'll bring him up this year. He was funniest about AROD, insisting that Yankee fan dissatisfaction with their pressure-challenged slugger issued entirely from the large salary he commanded and the regrettable human tendency to resent such good fortune. News flash to Cashman. you can't resent large salaries and be a yankees fan in the first place. I'm sure we'd all begald to see antoher zero added to the end of AROD's annuals if it meant more clutch hits and fewer clutch errors. why does noone who addresses this question (which is to say eveyone making a living from baseball and its discourse) acknowledge that people walk Giambi to get to AROD this year more often than prople walk AROD to get to Jorge?