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K.C. swiping bases at eye-popping clip
Posted: Thursday June 01, 2000 08:04 PM
Unable to bash with their muscle-bound opponents, the Kansas City Royals are compensating with speed. In fact, the Royals are so good at the running game, they're almost removing the element of risk from the stolen base. As of Wednesday, Royals' base stealers had been caught just six times in 58 attempts this year, a staggering success rate of 90 percent. Take away two pickoffs, and just four opposing catchers have thrown out a speeding Royal. Ten different Royals have stolen bases, topped by AL leader Johnny Damon's 17. Asked if all that running gets inside opponents' heads, Royals second baseman Carlos Febles laughed. "Oh, yeah, of course," Febles told me. "They know we're going to run. That puts a lot of pressure on other catchers. And the guys behind us are going to see a lot of fastballs. Teams don't want to throw breaking balls when we're on base."
Piecing it together in BostonAt 6-1, Red Sox lefthander Jeff Fassero already has won more games than he did all last year, when his 7.20 ERA was baseball's highest in 62 years for a pitcher with at least 150 innings. His 3.32 ERA ranks fifth in the American League, and he's proving to be the latest scrap-heap resurrection job on a Red Sox staff filled with such stories. The 37-year-old Fassero credits Boston pitching coach Joe Kerrigan with helping him make mechanical adjustments in his delivery. By keeping his back leg straighter, Fassero is pitching "taller," and the vicious sink has returned to his two-seam fastball. As a result he's not nibbling as much and his walks have plummeted. Fassero says only a handful of other clubs expressed interest in his services last winter: the Rockies, Mets, Cardinals and Angels. But he took a $2 million, one-year deal from the Red Sox in large part because of Kerrigan, who was his pitching coach in Montreal at the start of his career. "I knew I could still pitch," Fassero told me. "There was no question about that in my mind. It was just a matter of getting straightened out. I'm just glad I've gotten back to where I was. I wanted to show I could do it again."
Mariners' marvelous MartinezFassero isn't the only 37-year-old at the top of his game. Edgar Martinez, his former teammate in Seattle, is having another monster season as the Mariners designated hitter. Despite an ever-aching body, Martinez is challenging for a third AL batting title, leads in RBI and sits just off the home run pace. "Edgar is just a fabulous hitter," one scout told me. "He gets his hands inside of the ball, on top of ball, wherever it's pitched. And he looks like he can barely walk. He limps around on that pulled leg muscle. But with Edgar, having a pulled leg muscle doesn't hurt his speed." Mike Berardino covers baseball for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.
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