May 18

Each season has its own life that plays itself out and smudges or obliterates what we thought we learned in the former life, known as last year. This, of course, is the rational basis for all we hold true until Opening Day.

It usually takes until sometime between the Ides of May and Memorial Day for that life's path to take direction, hence we watch to see how the Braves and Mets shake down against the proletariat rise of the Marlins and Expos, or the Cardinals and Astros against the Reds.

	After a mediocre rookie year, Shea Hillenbrand has emerged as a force in the Red Sox lineup this season.

Conventional wisdom on Opening Day was that the Yankees would be the team to beat in the American League because of their strong pitching and all their offseason acquisitions, and that their two most feared competitors would be the Mariners, coming off 116 wins in 2001, and the A's, coming off 102 wins of their own.

Now, three weeks into May, it's clear the Yankees will again be in the playoffs, likely with more wins than they've had since their 114-victory season in 1998.

But while the Yanks went into Saturday's game only two games behind Boston and 1½ behind Seattle, top scout Gene Michael is still out watching the Toronto outfielders because owner George Steinbrenner has seen the Red Sox and Mariners and has told GM Brian Cashman, Michael and company that he wants a star right fielder (hence the look at the Jays, as well as constant checks on the Pirates' Brian Giles and the Marlins' Cliff Floyd), not to mention another starting pitcher if Andy Pettitte's elbow injury turns out to be serious.

The Yankees, Red Sox and Mariners presently each appear capable of winning 100 games. But how they have evolved are all elements of changed lives. Oh, New York has begun to hit and Jason Giambi is getting comfortable and Bernie Williams is healthy, but it has been Alfonso Soriano who has been the carrier force; no one could have forseen that he'd have come so quickly that he'd be among the league leaders in doubles, hits, total bases, slugging, extra-base hits and batting.

Granted, the Red Sox expected vast improvement just getting Nomar Garciaparra, Jason Varitek and Pedro Martinez back. They also anticipated Johnny Damon and John Burkett would improve the team, as well.

But what makes the Red Sox this much better are three factors: 1. Manager Grady Little's implementation of his personality on the players and his understanding and use of his 25-man roster; 2. Derek Lowe right now is the best pitcher in the American League; and 3. Shea Hillenbrand has made such a quantum leap that Mariners manager Lou Piniella says "I'd put him right in there behind Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez in the category of the best right-handed hitters in our league, with Edgar (Martinez) out. In fact, when we played Boston last weekend in Seattle, after two pitches I turned in the dugout and said, 'I can't believe how much improvement this guy has made.' I don't think I can ever remember any hitter making this much improvement so quickly. But I'll also say this -- I never thought Soriano would be this good a hitter this fast, either."

The Hillenbrand story -- coming into spring training last season he had never played above Double-A, once briefly retired, never had as much as 18 walks in a season -- is one of the most remarkable anywhere. Former Red Sox and present Astros manager Jimy Williams (and Little) had both taken a liking to the minor-league utilityman when in spring trainings past; when Williams got the Houston job, he asked Astros GM Gerry Hunsicker to try to trade for him. After going through the Boston farm system without any teachings about pitch recognition or plate discipline, he set out to learn.

"He has great hand-eye coordination, and doesn't swing and miss often," says Red Sox hitting coach Dwight Evans. "He's gotten much stronger. And he is one of the hardest working players I've ever seen. He outworks everyone here, and we have a team of workers."

When the Oakland staff broke him down, pitching coach Rick Peterson said, "we found that he'd hit every pitch in every area of the strike zone. This is not a fluke. He is a tremendous hitter."

For further proof of Hillenbrand's emergence, check out these numbers:

Top offensive performers at third base
(Through May 17)

Player	Avg.	OPS	HR	RBI	RC*
Lowell, Fla.	.356	1.011	7	30	35.9
Hillenbrand	.338	.941	7	28	28.2
Hinske, Tor.	.311	.918	6	23	27.2
Glaus, Ana.	.287	.900	8	36	27.1

Top offensive performers at second base
(Through May 17)

Player	Avg.	OPS	HR	RBI	RC*
Soriano, NY	.324	.932	9	26	34.6
Spivey, Ari.	.328	.963	3	24	31.2
Vidro, Mon.	.323	.862	3	26	30.4
Boone, Sea.	.256	.800	6	28	23.5

* Runs Created

And for all the time Martinez has been in Boston, the starting rotation has been Pedro and others, with Bret Saberhagen, Ramon Martinez, Tim Wakefield and Pete Schourek starting the playoff games Pedro did not.

"Boston can beat New York," says Piniella. When that statement got a quizzical look, Piniella said, "for the first time they have three starters who can win in the postseason with (Martinez), Lowe and Burkett."

Obviously, how Martinez gets past the 150-inning mark remains a concern, but Lowe's emergence has taken an enormous amount of pressure off the Red Sox's ace. After spending the winter preparing himself to start, strengthening his body with rigorous conditioning and his mind with the kind of psychological counseling that Kevin Brown, Greg Maddux, Al Leiter and so many other great pitchers use, Lowe has been absolutely dominant. He's at the league lead in ERA (2.16), batting average (.167) and OPS (.436, best in either league) against. He doesn't walk batters (13 in 58 2/3 IP), coupled with the best groundball/flyball ratio (3.24). As the Boston Herald's Tony Masserotti pointed out, in two starts against the flyball-hitting Oakland Athletics, Lowe allowed a total of two fly-ball outs.

Piniella may believe that Boston can beat New York if Martinez remains healthy. He knows they need to get Manny Ramirez back as quickly as possible, and noting that the Red Sox have hit only one home run off a left-handed pitcher all season (by Ramirez), believes that as he used John Halama Friday in Fenway Park, several teams will save left-handers for them.

"The one break they get is that a lot of teams come in on a New York-Boston swing and end up using lefties in Yankee Stadium," says Piniella. The White Sox are at home this weekend and will pitch but Mark Buehrle on Sunday, thus he will miss the upcoming White Sox-Red Sox series in Boston (Monday-Wednesday).

The Mariners remain the same in certain ways: Ichiro is still great (in Piniella's opinion, the best player in the AL after A-Rod), their lineup has great at-bats from first to ninth (they lead the league in walks), they play defense (with three outfielders who can throw) and they play very hard.

"We've lost three superstars, now this season we've lost Edgar and Jeff Nelson and we keep winning," says Piniella. "I just hope we don't lose anyone else. This can't hold up this way."

Still, with a four-man bench (Charles Gibson, Luis Ugueto, Desi Relaford and Ben Davis), Piniella keeps moving players around.

When Nelson comes back, the bullpen may be even stronger with the addition of Shigetoshi Hasegawa and the emergence of Ryan Franklin, especially if they find a second lefty. What the M's now hope is they are developing a rotation that can win a seven-game series against the Yankees, as Piniella is starting to get the power arms to mix in with ace Freddy Garcia and Jamie Moyer. Joel Pineiro was the first in, and in three starts he's 3-0; to guard against him wearing down, Piniella likely will back up some of his starts. Next will be Rafael Soriano, the quick-armed fireballer who has opened the staff's eyes and will go into the rotation this week. "If these guys are as good as we hope, we could really have something," says Piniella.

As the coaches like to point out, the Mariners are coming off a 116-win season with five new first-year players. And Piniella would like to add another before the end of the season. Both the manager and hitting coach, Gerald Perry, believe that 21-year-old Australian Chris Snelling -- son of a tennis pro, a former cricketer from Blackwood, Australia (whose website calls the town "the middle of nowhere, the center of everything") -- can come up from Double-A and step in and contribute. They compare the lefthanded-hitting Snelling to Lenny Dykstra, a kamikaze player with 15-20 home run power and a plus Bobby Higginson arm.

"He was the best hitter in Arizona (during spring training)," says Piniella, "and he wasn't even in our spring training. Every time I'd have to ask for a couple of minor leaguers to come play in one of our games, I'd ask for him." Every manager needs one player who calls him, "Mate."

Much will evolve, injuries and trades and walls that seem to spring up every August. Steinbrenner has already mandated that the Yankees will get a Giles, Floyd, Jose Cruz Jr. or Larry Walker. Red Sox GM Mike Port has stated that he doesn't want to rock the boat, but the Rockies have talked to Boston about Mike Hampton in a deal that would involve a prospect and a couple of veterans; the staff is fascinated by having Hampton with the current Big Three, say they are discussing dollars in the upstairs offices and realize that an escape from Coors Field could do for Hampton what it's done to Pedro Astacio (check the post-Coors curveball of what may be the best free agent pitcher signing of the offseason).

The Mariners are unlikely to make any major acquisitions, despite having $50 million local TV-radio revenues.

Oh yes. Speaking of revenues, it should come as no surprise that these three teams who on the Ides of May were thinking about 100 wins are the three highest revenue clubs in the American League -- in order, Yankees, Mariners, Red Sox.