"Considering the unmitigated disaster that was supposed to be this past offseason, Brian Cashman may be having the best run of his career.

It's early yet and the schedule has been generous. But the Yankees won another game Saturday powered by their unglamorous cogs, and many of the GM's ad-libs are keeping the Bombers atop the AL East.

"I cobble well," Cashman was saying. "When I fix things on the run I have a lot more success than doing the obvious slam-dunk things. The slam-dunk things are supposed to work out, everybody expects them to work, and they have the opposite effect. The low-end stuff, the low-risk, there can be high-reward."

A winter of desperation has somehow turned into a spring of relative success, behind names such as Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, Russell Martin and Eric Chavez. The rotation is hanging in there, despite several major setbacks. And every day, it seems, the fill-ins become opportunistic heroes.

Again Saturday, the little guys were doing big things to beat Toronto, 5-4. Chavez broke up a double play in the second with an aggressive slide to key a three-run rally, then knocked in a run with a single in the third.

Martin drove in a run in the second and came around to score. In the sixth, Martin threw a bullet to Chavez to nail Juan Rivera, the potential tying run, at third base.

Cashman is the first one to admit he was frantic this past winter, after Cliff Lee turned down a six-year contract that could have been worth $148 million to sign for less money with the Phillies in mid-December. It only got worse when Andy Pettitte retired in early February.

Between those two events, Cashman shook the bushes searching for answers. He considered signing Carl Pavano again. He went down to Orlando to speak with an enthusiastic Zack Greinke, only to decide the asking price was too high."