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 Inside Baseball
Posted: Tuesday March 30, 1999 03:21 PM Jay Buhner's Comeback | The HOT Corner Healthy Milwaukee can contend in the injury-ravaged National League Central By Jeff Pearlman
Berry, however, sees an opening -- a ray of light for the perennial bottom feeders who finished 74-88 last season. It has less to do with skill than with the carnage that has befallen Milwaukee's division rivals. "What's happened this spring is very sad," he says. "I don't like watching guys get hurt, none of us do. But these types of twists and turns really open things up." Cubs righthanded flamethrower Kerry Wood is out for the year with a torn ligament in his right elbow. The Cardinals' 20-game-winner-in-waiting, righthander Matt Morris, is gone with the same injury. Lefthander Denny Neagle, potentially the Reds' best starter since Jose Rijo, has suffered weakness in his pitching shoulder and will open the season on the 15-day disabled list. Going into spring training the Cubs, Cardinals and Reds were considered playoff contenders -- if not to outgun Houston in the Central, then at least to challenge for the wild card. Now ... "There are always good outfielders available and usually a spare infielder who can fill in," says lefthander Terry Mulholland, who will step into the Cubs' rotation. "But replacing an ace is a huge challenge. It cripples you." The Cardinals' rotation now consists of a quintet that combined for 33 wins last year. The Cubs' rotation is anchored by veterans Kevin Tapani, Steve Trachsel, Mulholland and Scott Sanders, but none is good enough to lift a team that relied on the 21-year-old Wood not only for victories but also for adrenaline. "A huge part of winning is feeling you can win," says Milwaukee manager Phil Garner. "When you lose a Kerry Wood, you have to lose a little of that feeling." The Pirates were not exempt from the devastation. They lost a starting pitcher the hard way: Righty Jose Silva was struck in the face by a line drive last week, and he will open the season on the DL. Although none of the Astros' arms have dropped off, leftfielder Moises Alou, Houston's most productive hitter, is out for the year with a torn ligament in his left knee. The Central's only safe haven seems to be Milwaukee. Suddenly the Scott Karl-Steve Woodard-Bill Pulsipher starting trio doesn't look so bad. "I've always felt our injuries were the reason we haven't won the division," says Garner, who last year had three key players -- utilityman Dave Nilsson, first baseman John Jaha and righthander Cal Eldred -- on the DL for long stretches. "Now we're healthy, and everyone else is banged up. It's time to find out if I'm right."
Attitude Adjustment: The get-tough attitude in Toronto starts at the top. General manager Gord Ash showed up for spring training with a shaved head. His new assistant G.M., Dave Stewart, was an intimidating presence on the mound during a 16-year career, and as the Padres' pitching coach last year he told his staff to stop fraternizing with opposing players before games. Manager Jim Fregosi, who took over for the fired Tim Johnson on March 17, presided over the '93 National League champion Phillies, one of the more colorful teams of the decade. Ash wants his young club to shed its easygoing demeanor and fight for wins like a band of rowdy sailors. "I don't think baseball has to be a gentlemen's tea party," says Ash. "Not that you want fisticuffs to erupt every night, but we want to play the game so that other clubs don't want to play us." The Blue Jays started to get the idea late last season. Standing 54-56 on July 31, they went 34-18 down the stretch. That surge was fueled by dominating pitching, the emergence of some young hitters and a fiery brand of play that had been lacking since the breakup of the two-time world champions in the early '90s. First baseman-DH Carlos Delgado and rightfielder Shawn Green combined for 73 home runs and 215 RBIs last year, but they weren't exactly fiery personalities. This season Ash wants to see more of what he saw on Sept. 11, when the Blue Jays won 5-4 at Yankee Stadium in a game marred by a series of brushbacks and a bench-clearing fracas. "That was the first brawl I've been involved with since I've been here," says Green, who's entering his fifth full season in Toronto. But that incident was touched off by departed Toronto righthander Roger Clemens, who plunked Scott Brosius after blowing a three-run lead. Without Clemens, who was traded to the Yankees in the off-season, Toronto's need for more grit on the field and in the clubhouse is even more urgent. "We don't want to be nice anymore," says Ash. -- By Stephen Cannella
Jay Buhner's Comeback: The big cardboard box arrived at Jay Buhner's Issaquah, Wash., house in December. Buhner was excited. What could it be? Who could have sent it? He ripped it open -- damn. "It was a couple of first baseman's mitts from the Mariners," says Seattle's rightfielder, frowning at the memory. "I put them on, then threw them right away. I knew they wouldn't be needed." At the time Buhner was three months removed from career-threatening Tommy John surgery on his right elbow. Seattle's plan was to bring him along slowly, put him at first base when he was ready to play every day and then hope that he could return to rightfield ... someday. "We had no reason to think Jay would be ready to play anytime before June," says Rick Griffin, the Mariners' head trainer. But come April 5, when Seattle opens at home against the White Sox, the 34-year-old Buhner will be the Mariners' starting rightfielder. "Without Jay, we don't win," says DH Edgar Martinez. (With Buhner missing 89 games last year, including 59 with an injured left knee, Seattle had 14 fewer wins than in 1997, slumping to 76-85.) "I'm amazed at how quickly he's come back, but he looks like the old Buhner: one of the best clutch hitters I've seen." Buhner attributes much of his speedy recovery to that great American rehabilitation technique: fly-fishing. One month after his surgery, he, Griffin and team physician Larry Pedegana went on an annual excursion to a cabin on the Madison River near Bozeman, Mont. Buhner, an avid flycaster, had planned on using his left arm. But after a while he started to sneak off and go righty. At first he had only 30% of his normal range of motion. A week or so later he had 95%. "It was the constant repetition of casting," he says, "and it never hurt." The Mariners' next Randy Johnson is making good progress. Nineteen-year-old Ryan Anderson , a 6'10" lefthander and the 19th player picked in the '97 draft, dazzled the team with his fastball and slurve this spring. Throwing his fastball in the mid 90s, he struck out 152 batters in 111 innings with Class A Wisconsin last year and will begin this season at Double A Orlando ... Giants teammates are still miffed at leftfielder Barry Bonds , who in the off-season told the San Francisco Chronicle that he wants to be in San Francisco "when we turn it around." Last season the Giants lost a one-game playoff for the wild card ... The Todd Van Poppel saga continues. The Pirates figured the former high school phenom, who has played with four organizations since being picked 14th in the '90 draft, would win a job in their bullpen. Instead he struggled with his control and was outrighted to Triple A Nashville ... San Francisco manager Dusty Baker calls free-agent pickup F.P. Santangelo "the new Derrel Thomas ." Santangelo has played five positions this spring: leftfield, centerfield, rightfield, second base and third base. Thomas, an eight-position player, was Baker's teammate with the Dodgers from 1979 through '83 ... Dale Sveum , the Yankees' bullpen catcher late last season, is battling for Arizona's final roster spot. Sveum, a 35-year-old utility infielder, had 58 at bats for New York before being released on Aug. 3 and offered the bullpen job ... Ten years ago Houston's Mike Scott won 20 games and Oakland's Dave Stewart won 21 by relying on what was the game's trendiest pitch at the time -- the split-fingered fastball. These days some pitching coaches are discouraging the use of the splitter. "I don't teach it," says Giants pitching coach Ron Perranoski . "Maybe they didn't know it back then, but it puts too much pressure on the arm." Issue date: April 5, 1999
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