Baseball

Perplexed Players

One hour after the Astros lost 8-1 to the Mets last Thursday night, the 1994 National League Most Valuable Player, Houston first baseman Jeff Bagwell, was alone in the Astro clubhouse, swinging a bat in front of a mirror. His expression showed the confusion and disgust he felt after a 1-for-4 night had raised his average from .169 to .173. He shook his head and said, "It's like I've never seen a curveball in my life. It's a joke."

It's no joke. While runs were being scored at a pace slightly above last season's torrid rate, some of baseball's best hitters, including Bagwell, struggled mightily during the first 3½ weeks of this season. Even though he had hit eight home runs through Sunday, Tiger first baseman Cecil Fielder, the overall RBI leader of the 1990s, was hitting .169, had only 13 RBIs and was 0 for 18 with runners in scoring position. Centerfielder Marquis Grissom, who was acquired from the Expos in the spring to give the Braves the spark they needed at the top of their order, was batting .198 and had fewer stolen bases (five) than 230-pound Red Sox first baseman Mo Vaughn (six). Royal DH Bob Hamelin, who crashed 24 home runs en route to 1994 American League Rookie of the Year honors, was hitting .167 with no homers and had fewer runs batted in (five) than soft-swinging Angel catcher Andy Allanson had in one game (six) last week. The list goes on (box, opposite).

Met manager Dallas Green blames these early-season batting woes—as well as the shaky starts by some pitchers and the overall sloppy play—on this year's shortened spring training. "Players say, 'Oh, spring training is too long,' " says Green. "But someone a lot smarter than any of us decided a long time ago that six weeks is right." Green says most major league players simply aren't talented enough to take off eight months, train for three weeks and be ready to play, as they were expected to do following the end of the players' strike. Plus, he says, most players weren't disciplined enough to work out with their usual off-season rigor because they didn't know when they would be playing again.

Yet Bagwell is among the hardest workers in the game, and his slump has been the severest. After all, he batted .368 with 39 homers and 116 RBIs in just 110 games last year. "You can't expect that every year out of Jeff Bagwell," said Bagwell, who was hitting .188 at week's end. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime season." Indeed, in 1994 he never went three straight starts without a hit, his longest streak without a run batted in was five games, and he had as many walks as strikeouts (65).

In 23 games through Sunday, Bagwell had already gone three straight starts without a hit and eight straight without an RBI. He also had 29 strikeouts (second most in the league) to 20 walks. "That's why this game is so hard," he said. "Just when you think you have it figured out, this happens."

During one two-week stretch, Bagwell's game-day routine included early batting practice, regular BP, a game and then more hitting after the game. When all that brought no results, he gave up the extra hitting. Bagwell said he's not the type to throw a helmet or snap a bat, "but I had one tantrum—my one for the year." After a particularly bad plate appearance, he took out his frustration by beating his bat against the tunnel that leads from the Houston dugout to the clubhouse.

Bagwell doesn't blame the strike for his weak start. Unlike Fielder and Pirate shortstop Jay Bell, who was hitting .190 at week's end, Bagwell didn't spend most of the off-season traveling around the country representing the players' union at meetings with owners. Bagwell was following his usual off-season workout routine, but, he said, "I'm not the type who can just pick up a bat and hit."

Bagwell has a very unorthodox swing. His stance is more open and his feet are spread much wider apart than most players, and he barely strides into the pitch. Any glitch in his mechanics can foul up his swing. "I'm not like Junior [Ken Griffey Jr.]," he said. "He has such a great swing. I played in a softball game with him this winter, and he just started hitting homers. In the years I didn't make the All-Star Game, after the three days off I would struggle for three days to get my swing back."

After working with Houston hitting coach Steve Henderson, Bagwell, a righthanded batter, identified the problem last week. He had been opening his left shoulder too soon, a defect that wasn't allowing him to see the ball well enough. "But it's not as simple as, O.K., I know what I'm doing wrong, this thing is over," Bagwell said. He wound up focusing so much on his mechanics that he didn't concentrate enough on meeting the ball.