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Fat chance Grudzielanek's pop is one of many early-season flukes
Sports Illustrated's Stephen Cannella checks in with his baseball thoughts every Thursday throughout the season on CNNSI.com. No, you weren't hallucinating this morning when you looked at the home run leaderboards. There was Mark Grudzielanek, a six-year veteran who has never gone deep more than 10 times in a season, with five homers, one fewer than major league leader Luis Gonzalez. What gives? To paraphrase the old Campbell's Soup ad campaign, never underestimate the power of food. Early in spring training I asked the Dodgers' second baseman how he had spent his offseason. His answer was music to the ears of anyone who dreams of sharing a winter fitness program with a major leaguer. "Basically," Grudzielanek said, "I sat around and got fat. I ate and ate and ate in November and December." Fat isn't exactly the proper word in this case -- Grudzielanek's expansion wasn't an irrational one, and it was accompanied by a strict weightlifting regimen. He was trying to regain the 15 pounds he'd lost while suffering from a mysterious viral infection last summer that sapped his energy and strength. Prior to the illness, Grudzielanek, coming off a career-best .326 batting average in 1999, was hitting .303 and leading his team in runs. Grudzielanek sat out a week in mid-July, but continued feeling weak and fatigued after returning to the lineup. By the end of July his weight had dropped from 190 pounds to 175, and Grudzielanek went on to hit just .246 over his final 67 games. "It felt like the worst hangover you could possibly have for four weeks," he says. "I went to three different doctors last year and they all said the same thing: Wait five days and let it go through you. I kept waiting to get better, and even when I did they never figured out what it was. I kept thinking to myself, 'What if it comes back?'" Much of what happens in the early weeks of the season is an aberration -- for example, Grudzielanek isn't likely to be listed among the game's home-run elite come September, and you won't find the Twins at the top of the AL Central then, either -- but several teams can take heart that key players who had miserable 2000 seasons seem poised for comebacks. Eight games into his tenure with the Indians, Juan Gonzalez, who played only 115 games and drove in a mere 67 runs for the Tigers, is hitting .333, is tied for the AL lead in homers (5) and is second in the league in RBIs (12). Astros second baseman Craig Biggio, who had surgery on his ACL last August, says he's playing without pain, and through Wednesday's games he was batting .400 and had the second-most hits (14) in the NL. The news has been equally good for Houston closer Billy Wagner, who is less than a year removed from elbow surgery. In his first four appearances Wagner allowed one hit and no runs; on Tuesday he completely blew away the Brewers, striking out the side in the ninth inning on 11 pitches. Grudzielanek is as big a key for the Dodgers as Gonzalez, Biggio and Wagner are for their teams. With No. 2 hitter Grudzielanek struggling, the Dodgers scored 4.5 runs per game in the second half last year, nearly a full run less than their first-half rate. He acknowledges his early home run pace is a fluke, but his fast start does provide some peace of mind after such a difficult season. "There's no question I'm stronger this year," he says. "I put on 15 pounds and I'm sure that's part of it. But I'm not a home run hitter. One year [1996] I hit five homers the first two months. I finished with six." Sports Illustrated staff writer Stephen Cannella covers the baseball beat for
the magazine . Touching Base appears every Thursday on CNNSI.com.
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