Berkman makes dent in slump with three hits

Lance Berkman was in the batting cage more than four hours before the first pitch - with the field safely free of superstar teammates - and took swing after swing after swing. It worked well enough for him to do some real damage, during the game this time.

He went 3-for-4 in a 7-2 win over the Red Sox last night, which finally made him feel like part of the team. "As long as we win, it doesn't matter if I hit .150. But you want to feel like you're contributing. You don't want to feel like you're an albatross," he said. "You kind of have to reestablish your credibility with a new team, with a new set of fans. And the only way you can do that is by getting some hits."

A day earlier, Berkman made the kind of impression that no Yankee wants to make - on the left shin of Alex Rodriguez, during batting practice. It accidentally knocked the 600-homer hitter out of the lineup. Berkman heard boos, and one-liners about how Rodriguez was the only thing he had hit hard since becoming a Yankee at the trading deadline.

"I felt terrible about it," Berkman said, "but I can't control the ball once it leaves my bat. I wish I could because then I could steer me a few more hits."

He did carry a .091 batting average as a Yankee into last night's game. Worse yet, he carried the memory of having ripped a batting-practice pitch Saturday a split-second after A-Rod had looked away to say hello to Fox sportscaster Joe Buck.

"I feel bad for poor Lance. He can't catch a break," Rodriguez said on ESPN before the game. "Of all people, he smacks me right in the ankle. Between him and Joe Buck, they've apologized 30 times in two days."

Rodriguez was fine to play last night, cheerfully meeting with students from Bronx Prep charter school late in the afternoon, while Berkman was back in the batting cage on the mostly empty field, taking extra hacks.

"I'm just trying to get a feel," said Berkman, who was batting only .245 with the Astros before coming to the Yankees.

"It has been frustrating for me this year because I haven't had a good feel all year. I'm just trying to find something, so I just get out there and swing and swing and swing and hope it comes back. I don't know that I've ever had a full year like this where I haven't felt very good. You just have to go out there and work as hard as you can."

At least for a night, it paid off. Berkman swung, swung and swung when it counted, picking up two doubles and a single.

One thing he said he won't do is take verbal swipes at anyone who boos him. "I'm a Christian and I think everybody has value, everybody should be treated with respect. I try to deal with people openly and honestly. I try to treat people the way I'd like to be treated myself," he said.

"I know that how I am as a person is much more important than what I do as a baseball player," he said. "Don't get me wrong, I'd love to come in here and bat .350 and drive in a bunch of runs. But how I'm perceived as a person is more important."