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Helton's a hit

Colorado's first baseman on one hellacious tear

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Posted: Thursday June 01, 2000 01:17 PM

By John Donovan, CNNSI.com

	• Storylines • Series to See • All Thumbs • Heroes & Bums • Short Hops • Yogi-isms

There's hot. There's really, really hot.

And then there's Todd Helton.

You'll hear a lot about Colorado's first baseman in the next few weeks, if you haven't heard already. Certainly, anyone who has played the Rockies in the first quarter of this season already has heard plenty from him.

"He's amazing," Houston slugger Jeff Bagwell said Monday after Helton led the Rockies to a come-from-behind win with a pair of home runs, including the game-winner. "He's been doing it all year. He's been the best first baseman in the game this year."

It's way too early to talk about making history, so let's talk about the present. Helton leads the majors with a .417 batting average. He has 17 home runs and 49 RBIs, both in the Top 5. He has eight games this season in which he's had at least three hits. He's had four games this year in which he's homered at least twice.

He's hitting .494 at Coors Field.

"He has the makeup and work ethic to be a great player," manager Buddy Bell said. "There's a reason he's hot. He's a tough son of a gun. He gets after it every day. This isn't luck."

What makes Helton's surge into summer even more impressive is that it's not like he doesn't know the other end of things. He came into Coors on the Rockies' current homestand and promptly went 0-for-13, a streak that saw his average dip way down to .388. It had not been that low since the early days of May.

He has responded with 11 hits in his last 16 at-bats, an impressive .687 clip.

"That sent a message to me that I can't relax," Helton said in The Rocky Mountain News of his slump. "I can't just go out and think I'm going to get hits. I have to work at it."

There already are rumblings of a possible run at the Triple Crown and a challenge to .400 on the season. Helton is still a long way from that.

But he plays 81 games in Coors Field. And the left-handed slugger is hitting .392 against southpaws -- compared to .267 a year ago.

Count him out? Better wait 'til he cools off some. Just in case.

On to The Week at a Glance, which asks: Are Randy and Pedro that good, or is everybody else just that bad?

The answer: Yes.

Interleague play Bud's baby is back with a vengeance, with the Yankees-Braves World Series rematch the best of the bunch. Sacrilege? Exciting addition to the grand old game? Whatever, as long as the owners have a few more coins to rub together because of it, it's here to stay.
The cardiac Cardinals The league's biggest boppers were swept in three games over the weekend by the Mets and are barely hanging onto their lead atop the NL Central. Can they stay there? A four-game series against the Diamondbacks -- the Cards won Monday night -- may tell.
Juan Gonzalez The continuing saga of the former Texas slugger will be a closely watched story in Detroit and everywhere else. Can the Tigers make him happy enough to stay around? Do they chance it? Or do they try to unload him by the end of July in hopes of getting something for all those youngsters they gave up for him in the first place?
Brawls It's old news now, Frank Robinson's punishment of the L.A. Dodgers for their fight with fans in Wrigley Field. But the appeals will be heard. Baseball's final decision on one of the ugliest episodes in quite a while will speak volumes.
New York Yankees at Atlanta Braves, June 2-4 A World Series rematch with a twist. The Yankees still are good, but they're maybe not the best in their division at this point. The Braves still are good, too, and many think they may be one of the better Atlanta teams in a decade. Turner Field and its notoriously blasé fans should be rockin' for this one.
San Francisco Giants at Oakland Athletics, June 2-4 On paper, this interleague series may look semi-appealing, a Battle of the Bay and all that. But this is Oakland's Network Associates Coliseum, which makes Pac Bell sound simply divine, and these are two teams struggling to stay at or near .500.
Interleague play. A chance to see stars you might not otherwise see. Or maybe a ruination of the grand old game's tradition. Or maybe something in between. The Glance gets sooo confused. But -- gut feeling -- we don't like it.
Garrett Stephenson joined Bob Gibson as the only pitchers to start a season 8-0 for the St. Louis Cardinals with his shutout Monday night against the Diamondbacks. On a team full of guys who can bang the ball out of the park, a guy who can keep the other team from doing that may turn out to be team MVP.
Triple plays come along rarely enough. Unassisted ones are darn near unheard of. Here's to Oakland second baseman Randy Velarde, who turned the neat triple trick Monday against the Yankees, only the 11th unaided triple play in major league history.
The Cubs have plenty of problems. Here's another one: The bullpen. The relievers have 12 saves in 23 tries and their closer, Rick Aguilera, has a 6.52 ERA, giving up 22 hits in 19.1 innings pitched.
Hero -- Darin Erstad: The Angels left fielder bubbled back to sizzling form -- he's rarely been off it this season -- with a .481 week that included four homers and nine RBIs.
Bum -- Derek Bell: The Mets right fielder was simply terrible last week -- a rarity in his red-hot season -- going 1-for-23 (.043) with seven strikeouts.
Bum -- David Bell: Bad week for Bells. The Mariners third baseman was 2-for-22 (.091).
Bum -- Aaron Boone: Maybe just a bad week for third basemen. Cincinnati's guy struck out 10 times in a 5-for-27 (.185) week.
Bum -- Ken Griffey Jr.: Or maybe just Cincinnati guys. Junior went 2-for-22 (.091) with one homer, two RBIs and eight strikeouts.
Hero -- Ray Lankford: The Cardinals left fielder banged three homers and nine RBIs on a 7-for-13 week (.538).
Since his return to the lineup after hurting his back, San Francisco's Barry Bonds is hitting .438 in nine games, with five doubles, four homers and 14 RBIs.
Before last weekend's Red Sox-Yankees showdown in the Bronx, the two teams had not met while tied for first place this late in a season since their one-game playoff for the AL East title on Oct. 2, 1978.
Pedro Martinez's 1.05 ERA is 3.97 runs below the American League average.
Randy Johnson's 1.33 ERA is 3.55 runs below the National League average.
Our tribute to the banal banter of baseball "At this time of year nothing is crucial, but everything is important." -- Cleveland vice president of baseball operations Mark Shapiro on the Indians' series with the White Sox last weekend. The Indians dropped two of the three games.

Statistics are through Sunday's games unless otherwise noted.

CNNSI.com baseball producer Lonny Krasnow contributed to this report.

The Baseball Week at a Glance appears every Tuesday.

 

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