New York ? They say a win is a win, and yet, after watching the Yankees take batting practice for three hours against a steady parade of minimum-waged, hopelessly overmatched, not-ready-for-prime-time Kansas City Royals pitchers on Wednesday, you felt as if this particular win deserved an asterisk affixed to it.

As in: “Versus minor leaguers.”

But it was a win, and a fun one for the Yankee hitters who shook off the 3-0 deficit Shawn Chacon put them in even before they got their first hacks of the day, and busted out for 15 hits while also taking full advantage of the eight walks afforded them. Indeed, so horrible has been the Royals’ pitching these past couple of days that it has served to minimize the Yankees’ own deficiencies in that area.

Before Wednesday’s game, Joe Torre conceded it was perfectly legitimate to pose questions about Chien-Ming Wang and Chacon equaling or even improving on their impressive first seasons in the Yankee rotation last year. There just was not enough track record, Torre asserted, to presume anything. And even though the manager professed confidence that Wang and Chacon needed only a little more consistency, the early returns from both are more ominous than encouraging.

Wang’s earned-run average is 5.91 after two no-decision starts, with a yield of 15 hits over 102â3 innings. After Wednesday’s good-and-bad seven-inning effort in which the Royals smacked Chacon around for the three runs in the first and another two in the fifth, his ERA stands at 7.59 and he has allowed 15 hits in 112â3 innings. In both his starts, Chacon has been the victim of two-run homers – the Angels’ Orlando Cabrera’s last week and one from Reggie Sanders on Wednesday.

“I’ve just got to come out of the bullpen a little more ready to pitch,” Chacon said.

Torre contends that Wang and Chacon merely have to keep the team in games, and in Chacon’s case, he felt he at least did that Wednesday, even if the Yankee hitters were making sure that the game became all Omaha from the fourth inning on.

“He’s a battler,” Torre said of Chacon, but as Chacon countered: “I’d like to have games where I don’t have to battle so much, and I will.”

“That’s why it’s so important for Randy (Johnson) and Moose (Mike Mussina) to give us stability,” Torre said, “so we don’t have to rely on these kids.”

Nevertheless, Torre knows he is depending on Wang and Chacon to become more effective. He knows he can’t count on the Yankee hitters to bail them out as they did these last two days against the Triple-A Royals pitchers. They got the Yankees two wins, but Wang’s and Chacon’s numbers say they haven’t exactly gotten the job done, even if they technically kept the Yankees in games in which they scored nine and 12 runs.