Are Pitchers Figuring Out Cano?

For much of the year, Robby Cano has been surprisingly good. When he came up during the Junkees' first shakeup in May, I thought maybe he'd be better than Womack. But the guy's been damn good, perhaps a borderline ROY candidate. Junkee fans haven't been so excited about a rookie (not counting Shemp, who wasn't a real rookie anyway) in a long, long while.

But in the past week, Cano's been awful. A 3-for-28 slide has pulled his average down 17 points. Then there was that incident where he was reading the paper while talking to reporters. I didn't see what the big deal was with that, especially considering that Cano is teammates with such media-friendly folks as Randy Johnson and Kevin Brown.

But what I found most interesting was what Waldman said yesterday: pitchers are starting to change the way they approach Cano. For example, they're starting to throw pitches way outside to see if the guy can chase it. And so far, it's worked.

Who knows? If Cano is for real, he'll make the necessary adjustments and start hitting again. Otherwise, he'll turn out to be more Angel Berroa than Derek Jeter.

------ Painful game last night. I especially hated seeing A-Schmuck and the Juice man getting homers. But with the A's and Sox winning, at least the Junkees didn't gain any ground in the races.