LETDOWN Columbus won on Monday and Tuesday as Robinson Cano and Dioner Navarro continue making progress in different aspects of their offensive games. On Monday, Cano had a poor game as he went 0 for 3 while Navarro was decent, 1 for 3 with a single and a strikeout. Then on Tuesday, Cano had a huge game where he went 2 for 4 with a single, a home run, a walk, and a strikeout. The home run was a monster shot over the CF fence that according to "Sam M" of BTF went 410 feet. Navarro had a quieter Tuesday night, but still showed some progress by going 1 for 5 with a double and 2 strikeouts. Clearly, the progress is in the increased power he is showing in his AAA stint. I expect Navarro to have a very good 2005 at AAA. TLE™ continued his confusing 2004 by pitching a gem last night. The final line of 9-2-1-1-1-7-0 is pretty much all you could ask out of Ramon Ramirez. I've probably said this a ton of times already, but it'd be really great if this was the start of a great stretch. That 4.61 AA ERA is just not right. After going 0 for 3 with a walk and a strikeout on Monday night, Bronson Sardinha found himself demoted from the 3-spot in the lineup. Tuesday he hit 7th and was 0 for 3 with 3 strikeouts. Following that, he was moved down to 8th for today's game and went 1 for 3 with a single and a walk (more on Sardinha further down this entry). In a seemingly futile quest to make up all the games lost due to weather, the Tampa Yankees played a doubleheader yesterday after playing one game on Monday night. The star pitching performances during this stretch were turned in by Jeff Karstens and Steven White. Karstens, the 21-year-old RHP went 6-8-2-2-1-9-0 to pick up his 6th win of the year and lower his ERA to 3.78. White, a 23-year-old RHP went 7-2-0-0-2-4-0 and lowered his ERA to 2.83 while picking up his 5th win. Much like he was near the end of his MWL stint, White has really been rolling. He has no shot at a promotion this year, but ending the season on a hot stretch is always good. Melky Cabrera was a disappointing 3 for 10 with a walk, 2 strikeouts, and 3 singles. I say disappointing, as there were no extra base hits for him in the stretch. Still, at .303, he has his average back to its more normal levels and is hitting better than Eric Duncan has been of late. Duncan has been inconsistent since his promotion to High-A, destroying the ball in stretches and then seeming very lost in others, then again, I guess this should be expected of any teenager playing in A+; Duncan was 1 for 7 with 3 walks and 4 strikeouts. No matter how disappointed I have been in Duncan's batting average, currently at .233, the secondary skills he has shown since his promotion to Tampa keep me very interested. The forgotten Tampa prospect, Rudy Guillen, was 2 for 7 with a double and a single. Battle Creek and SI both had their lone games suspended. *** Today, the Yankees, through Baseball America, released their 2004 Arizona Fall League rosters. The AFL is seen as a prospect finishing school, where guys go to put the final touches on their games. With that in mind, I am very disappointed in the 6 players chosen to represent the organization this fall. The names include Sean Henn, Ben Julianel, and Javier Ortiz on the pitching side and Bronson Sardinha, Mitch Jones, and Kevin Thompson on the position player side. Perhaps my lone pitching complaint is that I would have liked to see Matt DeSalvo in the AFL, provided he recovers from his back problems in time. That said, I don't have that much of a problem with the pitching selections due to a combination of lack of upper level pitching prospects and not wanting to wear out the decent arms, but the hitting...that's another story. Bronson Sardinha, I don't mind because he needs to work on his fielding and I want him to get more ABs in as he refines his offensive game. In fact, I had him on my theoretical AFL Yankee representatives team. It's the other two that make me scratch my head. Kevin Thompson looks like a decent 4th OF defensive replacement type and Mitch Jones could be a nice PH with pop off the bench, that said, I think the Yankees had better choices for the AFL available, namely, Robinson Cano and Dioner Navarro. Cano is in position to get at least a shot at the big league 2B job in 2005 and I think the AFL would have been a great place for him to continue to refine the rougher aspects of his game. Also, while Navarro's major league contribution is not as close to being on hand, considering the amount of rest he has gotten in the latter parts of 2004 due to Sal Fasano I would have liked to see him get some more ABs in before the year was over. Overall, the announcement of the AFL rosters, something I look forward to each year, was very disappointing for me in '04. *** Questions, comments, suggestions to minoryankeeblog@hotmail.com   ¶ 3:13 PM