When you root for the Yankees now, clearly, you root for the past to flicker to life. The players are familiar from the glory of their younger days. Great older players will say they can do what they once did, just not as often. So it is with the Yankees of 2013, and with Alfonso Soriano this week.

Soriano has homered four times and driven in 13 runs in his last two games, the latest an 11-3 thrashing of the Angels on Wednesday. Soriano is 37, three teams removed from his first Yankees tour, when everything seemed possible. Games like these do not come easily.

“It’s harder now because of the age,” Soriano said before batting practice Wednesday. “I have to work more to keep my body in shape. Before, when I was young, I just came late to the ballpark, just practice and play the game. Now I have to go to the weight room, get loose, do a lot of stuff that I did not do when I used to be young. It’s a little different now, but I like it.”

Soriano first joined the Yankees with a dynasty in progress, on Sept. 14, 1999, as a pinch-runner for Darryl Strawberry. Ten days later, he hit a game-ending homer, and two years after that, his homer in Arizona in Game 7 of the World Series nearly gave the Yankees a fourth consecutive title.