MINNESOTA’S MISSING LINK : Twins Bank on Reardon to Win or Save the Day

The Montreal Expos called him the Terminator because of the regularity with which he ended late-inning threats.

The Minnesota Twins call him Yak, as in yakker, someone who is talkative, loquacious.

Great kidders, the Twins.

Jeff Reardon is a self-described loner, quiet, the antithesis of your normally flaky reliever.

Talkative? Loquacious? The Yak is clearly more terminator, which is fine with the Twins, who got a detonator just about every time they went to the bullpen last year.

Consider:

--En route to a 71-91 record, they blew 26 games in which they were leading or tied in the seventh inning or later.

--The bullpen had baseball’s highest earned-run average, 5.51, and lowest win and save totals, 15 and 24 respectively.

--Ron Davis, the erstwhile ace, registered two saves in his first four appearances, then made 32 others without a save, kindling an ERA of 10.31 during that span.

Now along comes the bearded introvert known as the Terminator, who adheres to the Bob Gibson theory that you should never get too friendly with opposing hitters. He probably doesn’t know many opposing hitters who want to be friends with him, anyway.

Reardon has saved more games in the last two years--41 in 1985 and 36 last season--than any other relief pitcher in baseball. He converted 35 of 48 save opportunities last year and 99 of 125 in the last three years. Of the 29 runners he inherited last season, only 4 scored.

He and Rich Gossage are the only relievers to have registered 20 or more saves in each of the last five years.

The statistics seems as intimidating as Reardon’s persona. The Twins stole him from Montreal in early February and haven’t stopped yakking about it.

Who can blame them?

Combined with other bullpen improvements, they see him as an end to repeated late-inning losses.

They see the starting pitchers going as hard as they can for as long as they can without straining to go more, a debilitating habit.

They see a potentially explosive offense built around Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek and Gary Gaetti maintaining motivation, as opposed to last year, when the frustrated Twins lost 21 games in which they scored five runs or more.

An impact player on the mound and mind, Reardon has converted 79% of his save opportunities in the last two years.

Left-hander Frank Viola, formerly an accounting major at St. John’s, turned on his cerebral calculator the other day and applied that percentage to those 26 late-inning losses of last year.

“If we win three-fourths of those, we’re right in the pennant race,” he said. “It’s the age of the relief pitcher, but we’ve never had that consistent closer. Reardon has changed our outlook on the whole season.”

Great expectations. Reardon knows there will be added pressure. He sat in his hotel room in Oakland the other day and said it was every relief pitcher’s dream to emulate the performance of Detroit’s Willie Hernandez in 1984 when he squandered only one save opportunity.

“But if a relief pitcher is successful 75 to 80% of the time, you have to consider that good,” he said. “And that’s what I’ve been.

“I know there’s people in Minnesota who think that I’m not going to blow any because I’ve saved so many, but the only time to get concerned is if you blow three or four in a row.

“Physically, I feel I’m capable of having my best year, but I may save 20 games and have just as good a year as if I saved 30 or 40. I mean, it’s hard to predict how many chances I’ll get. In fact, I probably won’t get as many because of the designated hitter. There are fewer moves with the pitcher.”

Obviously, there are times the Yak can talk and on this occasion he did, recalling that his name had been mentioned in trade rumors virtually every winter but that he didn’t really think he would be traded because of the consistency he had provided the Expos and the strength of his relationship with Manager Bob Rodgers.

“We were well settled in Montreal,” he said. “My family liked it. It wasn’t my preference to be traded, but I wasn’t heartbroken. It looked like they weren’t going to sign Tim Raines and Andre Dawson, which meant our chances of winning were much less. In that situation I didn’t look on leaving as that big a thing.”

Of the Twins, Reardon said he had heard only of Puckett, Hrbek, Gaetti and Bert Blyleven but he now realizes that opportunity is knocking.

“This is the better opportunity for me,” he said. “The Twins could be the team of the future if the pitching holds up. I’m surprised that nobody seems to pick us higher than fifth or sixth. If my experience tells me anything it’s that the other teams must be damned good because I think we are, too.”

The bottom line for Reardon is the feeling that the Twins are committed to winning while he was no longer sure about the Expos.

Rodgers, reached in St. Louis, said he didn’t want to trade Reardon but that it became a necessity, the most viable method of replacing catcher Mike Fitzgerald and starting pitchers Joe Hesketh and Bryn Smith, all seriously injured.

The injuries, coupled with the uncertainty surrounding Raines and Dawson, convinced the Expos that there wouldn’t be as many save opportunities for Reardon and that they could eventually find a replacement among their successful set-up men, though Rodgers said, “We know it won’t be easy. Jeff was the best in the league.”

Reardon is also guaranteed $825,000, a high price for a team not figuring to go anywhere. So who do you get in exchange for the league’s best relief pitcher? The Dodgers refused to trade either Orel Hershiser or Bob Welch and offered an unacceptable package of fringe players, according to Rodgers.

The choice eventually came down to the Twins. It was early February. Spring training was just two weeks away. Minnesota offered a pitching prospect named Yorkis Perez, who was 5-11 at Kenosha last year, a catching prospect named Jeff Reed, who batted .225 in 93 big league games, and a reported choice of any pitcher on the staff except Viola.

The Expos might have opted for the proven Blyleven, who is 36, but instead went for the potential of 26-year-old left-hander Neal Heaton, who has a 39-56 career record and was 7-15 last year.

On the day of the trade, Brian Kappler of the Montreal Gazette sought the opinion of George Bamberger, who retired as Milwaukee Brewer manager after the 1986 season and had recently been hired as a Montreal pitching consultant.

Bamberger told Kappler that Heaton had been rushed to the majors, that he still liked Heaton’s potential and that the young pitcher seemed ready to fulfill that promise.

“By the way,” Bamberger said, “who did we give up for him?’

“Reardon,” Kappler said.

“(Bleep),” Bamberger replied. “I didn’t say I liked Heaton that much.”

Andy MacPhail, Minnesota’s executive vice president, doesn’t want it thought that he put one over on the Expos.

He sat in the press box in Oakland the other day and talked about the potential of Heaton, Reed and Perez and said, “No, it’s not a steal, but it’s obviously a big trade for us, both in a tangible and intangible sense. It’s had an impact in the clubhouse and sent signals to our fans that we’ll do everything we can to develop a winner.”

Only Keith Atherton, who led the Twins with 10 saves, is back from last year’s bullpen corps. The Twins will open a three-game series with the Angels in Anaheim tonight as the American League’s Western Division leader.

They are 7-2. The bullpen is 2-2 with 4 saves, the proof of its overall dependability still to be documented.

Reardon, of course, is the key. He is 0-1 with three saves in four appearances. The Twins tried to hide him from American League hitters in spring training and that might have been a mistake, since he now seems to be searching for an artistic groove, looking to familiarize himself with new hitters.

Familiarize? Reardon will not allow himself to get too familiar.

It is said that during his early years in the New York Mets’ system, pitcher Pat Zachry said hello one morning and Reardon later asked, “What did he mean by that?”

Reardon denies that, but said: “I just don’t like being friends with opposing hitters. I’ll say hello, but I won’t carry on a conversation. The less they know about you the better. If they think you’re a buddy they can get pretty comfortable at the plate and that can work against you.”

Gibson, the once intimidating ace of the St. Louis Cardinals, preached the philosophy as a pitching coach with the New York Mets. Reardon embraced the doctrine.

At the University of Massachusetts, Reardon acknowledged, he had a reputation for temper and umpire baiting, which may be why he was not drafted and ultimately had to sign with the Mets as a free agent.

“I wasn’t exactly the All-American boy,” he said.

He posted a 17-4 record as a starter at Jacksonville in 1978 but then-Met Manager Joe Torre suggested relief, believing that Reardon’s fastball and tenacity made him nearly perfect for the role.

The Mets also suggested that he show more excitement.

“They wanted me to be like Neil Allen, who was one of my good friends and a real outgoing guy, but I’m the way I am,” Reardon said. “I’m quiet. I’m moody. I have a hard time forgetting a bad outing. I know that’s not supposed to be good, but I think it’s a reason for my success. I work that much harder after I pitch poorly. I carry it with me until I pitch well again.”

The Mets traded Reardon to Montreal in May of 1981 for outfielder Ellis Valentine. All 459 of his major league appearances have been in relief. He is 10th on the all-time saves list.

Catcher Tom Nieto, who batted against Reardon while with the St. Louis Cardinals and who was an Expo teammate before both were traded to the Twins, compared Reardon’s impact on a team to that of Bruce Sutter’s--from their pitching ability to the infectious way they handle themselves.

Reardon, 31, won’t change and won’t shave.

He grew his beard the year after the Mets lifted a restriction against them. “It has nothing to do with anything except that I hate shaving,” Reardon said.

It doesn’t hurt, though, that it enhances his aura. He is the way he is.

He also thinks that the recent addition of a curve and change-up have enhanced his ability to fulfill Minnesota’s expectations and strengthened his capability to pitch until he is 40.

All yak? Among the things he isn’t is all yak.