LAGGING INDICATORS,

UNDESERVED FATE

Third straight win, a nice offensive performance, and once again Giambi goes hitless, leaves 4 on, and Cano, while homering, goes one for four. On the Cano front, Giardi sounds like old Joe, which can't be good. He says his work habits are good, he just needs to get going, he just needs to hit them where they ain't, there's no need to bench him. Hey, I don't want to see him benched either, but let's ackowledge there is a technical problem, let's set him to work fixing it, and let's admit that he's not going to "get going" until the problem has been addressed.

As for Giambi, when Jorge began to hurt, he said he wan't going to play first because "we already have 7 first basemen." Well, at the moment they have none who can hit, some who can't field, none who suffice as an everyday player. So my question is this, since it will be 5-6 weeks before Jorge can catch again, is there a time prior to that--after the 15 day list for example--when he could hit effectively without risk and play a position where one only makes a throw or two a game? And can Jorge, who played first one game already, field well enough to do so regularly? If so, my feeling is they should give Giambi whatever time there is before Jorge can do these things to start hitting the ball the other way and putting up some productivity, and if he doesn't send him down to AAA, like they threatened to do last time and make Jorge the first baseman. Right now Giambi is a huge void in the middle of the lineup. The Yanks would be so much better with Posada following AROD (yes he should hit fifth so Matsui could bring in Damon, Jeter and Abreu and AROD can do what he does best--crush the ball with the bases empty) and Moeller or Molina bringing up the rear.

Great outing from Rasner today. He always did pretty well until he got hurt last year. He might help shore things up. But I think the Yankees are pressing their luck bringing up Igawa to replace Kennedy. I think the odds of Ian returning to form are better than Kei finding the form he never had.

Proverb of the day: There's no crying in baseball--and I never do. Strangely however I can be brought to tears by horseracing. I admit to crying when I saw Secretariat run the Belmont--the only time in my life I have ever witnessed complete, indisputable perfection--and I cried when Eight Belles went down on Saturday. For a filly to turn in that kind of performance against the best 3 yr. old colts in the world under the kind of structural distress she must have been in--well it merited something better than death. Far more tragic, to my mind, than Barbero, and I couldn't tell my wife what had just transpired without weeping.