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 Green light on power Blue Jays lefty shows he can bash with the big boys
Posted: Wednesday April 28, 1999 01:14 PM
It's time to consider Shawn Green a legitimate home run hitter. It's not just that he hit six dingers in Toronto's first 19 games. Did you see that bomb he hit off Anaheim's Tim Belcher last week? Only one other player, Toronto teammate Carlos Delgado, had ever reached the rightfield fifth deck of SkyDome. Green is proving that the 35 home runs he hit last year -- more than double his previous career high -- were no fluke. Green's not any bigger or stronger. But he did change his stroke a bit to get more lift and backspin on the ball. And every day he and Delgado practice driving balls to centerfield, a drill he said helps him hit home runs to all fields.
Hentgen hurtingThe early season hasn't been nearly as kind to another Blue Jay, pitcher Pat Hentgen. Toronto clocked his fastball at a woeful 84 mph in a recent start against Baltimore. Hentgen has hit 89 since then, but he's working so hard to get velocity on his pitches that he's been hurt more by terrible location. Scouts believe Hentgen must be hurting. He did suffer from shoulder tendinitis last year. But the Jays insist he's healthy. They say the problem is that Hentgen is still building arm strength because the tendinitis put him one month behind his usual winter throwing program.
Lefties rock RocketAL left-handers batted a league-worst .197 last year against Roger Clemens. This year they raked Clemens for a .306 average in his first four starts. What's up? Clemens has not been able to locate his fastball on the insider corner to lefties, a critical pitch for him. And he attributes his control problem to trying too hard to please the loud New York fans. After two years pitching in front of polite Toronto fans, Clemens said he has to reacclimate himself to pitching in front of a rabid home crowd, which means doing a better job of controlling his emotions. Left-handed complimentsCheck out the left-handed starting pitchers around baseball -- and you have to look hard to find them -- and it's easy to see why pitchers such as Kenny Rogers and Jeff Fassero are in demand. Through the first three weeks, lefties made only 26 percent of the total starts. And teams were more likely to lose when they did send a left-hander to the mound, dropping 55 percent of those games.
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