RISING Columbus has played 6 games in the past 4 days, thanks in large part to two doubleheaders. The most important pitching appearances in this stretch of games were the starts made by Brad Halsey and Chien-Ming Wang. Wang and Halsey are the premiere pitching prospects on the team and pitched like it this week. Wang went 8-5-0-0-1-4-0 (IP-H-R-ER-BB-SO-HR) in his most dominant outing of his short AAA career. His Columbus line of 19.1-18-7-7-3-18-3 might equal a September call-up, as long as he continues his progress through the end of this month. While I'm not completely sold on him as a starting pitcher, I think Wang could prove to be a dominant middle reliever and would like to see what he can do in the major leagues. Brad Halsey has been inconsistent since returning to AAA, but today's start was the high point of the inconsistency as he went 7-4-0-0-1-5-0. Halsey is a guy who I think could be a decent starter in the majors, with the ceiling of a 3, but wouldn't mind seeing him as a reliever. Either way, I would like to see him back in the bigs in September, partly because though it could be a small sample size issue lefties only hit .188/.176/.313/.157 (AVG/OBP/SLG/GPA) against him in 16 ABs and one of the hits was a David Ortiz double that was botched by Hideki Matsui. If that performance is for real, the Yankees may have the LOOGY they have been searching for. Knowing them, they will probably stick with The Run Fairy™ and his Proven Veteran™ status, making all this moot. Robinson Cano and Dioner Navarro have both hit at least decently in the 6-game stretch and this hitting is a continuation of the work they had been doing for a little while now. The 21-year-old Cano, likely to receive a September call-up, has gone 5 for 18 with 4 singles, a triple, a walk, and a strikeout. 20-year-old Navarro, who I don't expect to be as lucky come September, is really on a tear, going 6 for 13 with 5 singles, a home run, and a strikeout. After a promotion that struck many as unwarranted and a slow start that made even more question his abilities, Navarro now finds himself hitting .259/.315/.390. That isn't much to in and of itself, but considering where he was just a week ago, it would seem that Navarro has righted the ship. On a side note, both Navarro and Cano were honored by Baseball America this past week as both were name the top defenders for their positions in the Eastern League. Trenton's 4-day schedule featured one less game than Columbus. Coming off the best day of his career, when he was 7 for 10 with extra base hits galore, Bronson Sardinha has struggled. These past few days have been a continuation of that struggle; Sardinha was 2 for 14 with a strikeout and 3 walks. While any hitting slump is bad news, what is positive is that Sardinha has been making contact and taking his walks. That all 3 of the walks came in today's game is a sign to me that Bronson may be headed in the direction of a hot streak that pushes his average back above .300, it currently sits at .297. Usually, when pitchers strike out a lot of batters and have good control, they tend to prevent runs at at least a solid rate. This has not been the case with Ramon Ramirez. A prime example of this is his last start, 4-8-7-7-1-6-1. This is not a random occurrence either, since coming back from injury Ramirez has totals of 65.2-67-36-35-16-78-7. Since I have had not the pleasure of seeing any of Ramirez's starts, this would tell me that while he's been throwing strikes, he has not always thrown quality strikes and hitters have been taking advantage of this, he may want to move out of the strike zone a bit. Another thing that could be at work here is that Ramirez may just be tiring later in his starts. Whatever the problem is, it spells trouble for Ramirez's career as a starter and could mean that those who pigeonholed him as a reliever due to his small stature may be correct. That would also mean that my touting him as the Official Sixth Starter of the Minor Yankee Blog was poorly thought out, or just a poor decision. The continued downward spiral of Sean Henn's AA season was on display Sunday. Henn's 5.2-7-5-4-3-5-1 performance was disappointing, which is fitting because that exemplifies his season. That the Yankees have allowed him to tread water in the AA rotation for so long is a testament to his considerably physical talent. It seems this talent would be better served in the bullpen though as Henn's season has gotten worse in the second half and he struggles to put together back-to-back solid starts. The Florida State League is troublesome to follow. Unlike the Gulf Coast League, the trouble is not a result of mysterious players and results, but rather a result of poor weather combined with roofless stadiums equaling tons of rainouts. This produces stretches like the past 4 days where the top two Yankee affiliates played 6 and 5 games while Tampa only got in 2 games. Eric Duncan was 2 for 8 with 2 doubles and 3 strikeouts as he attempts to hit his way out of his most recent slump. It bears noting that no matter how deep his different slumps have been this season, the constant with Duncan has been his considerable power. In addition, despite striking out more as of late, his Tampa strikeout rate is still below his Battle Creek one. The most encouraging news to come out of Tampa, through all the rainouts, is the emergence of Melky Cabrera's over-the-fence power. While he has been hitting doubles and triples all season long, I have "critiqued" Melky for being a 4-tool player. He could run, hit for average, throw, and field, but I didn't think the power would really come. Lo and behold after going 2 for 3 with a home run, a walk, and a strikeout yesterday, Melky has 6 home runs in the FSL. In about the same amount of FSL at bats, Bronson Sardinha hit 2 home runs and had about half as many doubles and triples yet has gone on to show a lot more power at AA. This is a roundabout way of saying that Melky's stock should skyrocket in '05. Rudy Guillen, one of the organization's stars as recently as last offseason, is now in the shadow of two players in the FSL alone. He had a solid couple of games by going 3 for 7 with 2 singles, a double, a walk, and a strikeout. Guillen has had a lost season due to both injury and ineffectiveness, but could do himself a lot of good by ending the year strong. Tyler Clippard's poor outing a little over a week ago seems to have just been a blip on the radar as he was back to mowing them down on Thursday. The 19-year-old right-hander went 7-6-0-0-2-8-0 in his last start, and even factoring in his poor outing the previous start he has kicked things into high gear to close the season. The product is a line of 33-24-8-7-5-37-2 in his last 5 outings, very impressive. Hector Made and Erold Andrus were both solid to close the week. Neither player did anything to make you stand up and take notice, but both continued on their way to fine season ending numbers. Made was 3 for 12 with 2 singles, a triple, a walk, and a strikeout. Meanwhile, Andrus was 4 for 18 with 3 singles, a double, and 5 strikeouts. Rookie ball and Short Season leagues tomorrow, in addition to a rant! *** Questions, comments, suggestions to minoryankeeblog@hotmail.com   ¶ 7:53 PM