New Yankees 2B Brian Roberts feels no pressure replacing Robinson Cano

Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News

Brian Roberts gets into the swing of a new routine as the Yankees' second baseman this season.

TAMPA - For the better part of a decade, Brian Roberts was one of the faces of the Orioles. As his wife found out this week, things have changed.

Roberts' wife, Diana, was heading from the stands to meet her husband after a game when a member of Yankees security stopped her. The guard knew her name was Diana, but quickly admitted, 'I don't know your last name.'

'It's just different to be the guy in the back that nobody cares about or knows about,' Roberts said with a smile.

The Yankees are hopeful that will change this season, as Roberts is being asked to fill Robinson Cano's sizeable shoes. He has no intention of trying to fill the stat line the way Cano has since 2005, but that's the beauty of the job for Roberts; he knows that's not part of the job description.

'When you play here, even though you're taking over for Robbie, I still don't think anyone is expecting or thinks that I have to go out and do a ton,' Roberts said before going 1-for-1 with a walk against his old team Tuesday night. 'They just want me to be on the field with a uniform on for the most part. The rest is icing on the cake.'

Staying on the field has been a challenge for the 36-year-old, who has appeared in only 192 games during the past four seasons thanks to a number of different injuries. He was in the lineup again Tuesday night, playing his first back-to-back games of the spring.

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Before Roberts' injury woes began in 2010, he had established himself as one of the best second baseman in the game. Between 2004-09, Roberts hit .290/.365/.438 with an average of 12 home runs, 62 RBI, 101 runs scored, 46 doubles and 35 stolen bases per season.

'He's been a featured guy in the lineup for a long time,' Joe Girardi said. 'He was a pest. Being on this side, there were big situations you didn't want him to come up.'

Roberts led the American League with 50 doubles in 2004, then hung around the batting race for much of the 2005 season, getting selected to the first of his two All-Star Games on his way to the best overall season (.314/.387/.515) of his career.

'He was very cerebral as a player,' said Yankees special instructor Lee Mazzilli, who managed Roberts in Baltimore in 2004-05. 'You knew he got it. He understands the game. He was a joy for a manager to have on a team. He's absolutely perfect for this place.'

Roberts' best seasons came during a dark period in Baltimore baseball, as the Orioles averaged 70.5 wins during that six-year stretch, finishing as high as third in the AL East only once.

A visit from the Yankees would usually mean a transformation of Camden Yards into Yankee Stadium South, with pinstriped shirts easily outnumbering the black-and-orange colors of the home team.

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'It was really tough,' Roberts said. 'It's hard to feel like you're playing a road game at home, especially against a team you really need to be able to beat and compete against in order to get where you want to get to.'

Roberts, however, didn't blame the Orioles fans. He knew that if the team ever started winning, the fans would return. When Baltimore made its run to the playoffs in 2012, it meant everything to Roberts, who was forced to watch from the sidelines as the Orioles played their first October games in 15 years.

'It took us a long time to get to that point,' Roberts said. 'Ideally, I would have liked to be on the field and playing, but to be able to experience it and get to see that atmosphere, see the city and that fan base rally around the way they did, it was pretty cool.'

The Yankees have had great success in recent years with reclamation projects such as Andruw Jones and Eric Chavez, allowing former middle-of-the-lineup players to contribute at the back end of the lineup. Roberts is looking to become the latest such project, convinced there's still good baseball left in him even if his 'Face of the franchise' days are behind him.

'I understand that I'm 36 and very few guys are that guy at 36,' Roberts said. 'I don't really need that, I don't really have any interest for it and I don't care.

'I just want to win some games and have fun playing baseball.'

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