Baseball : Herr Will Lend a Hand, but the Twins Are Still in Need of Arms

There was a suspicion during the recent winter and spring that the glitter from his World Series ring had blinded Minnesota Twins’ General Manager Andy MacPhail to the fact that his team had won only 86 regular-season games.

He chose to employ the aged and infirmed in an attempt to repair his suspect rotation. He told the media that he would not break up his regular lineup just to add a journeyman pitcher, which was all he was being offered.

Friday night, however, he broke up that regular lineup. He traded right fielder Tom Brunansky, but not for a much-needed pitcher.

Brunansky went to the St. Louis Cardinals for second baseman Tom Herr, a .278 career hitter who figures to enhance a still-potent lineup with his on-base consistency near the top of the order.

The Cardinals have been averaging 2.8 runs per game. Brunansky will be asked to help Bob Horner replace the power that Jack Clark took with him to the New York Yankees. Luis Alicia, a touted farm product, will replace Herr, 32, at second.

The Twins, disappointed with the hitting of Steve Lombardozzi, last year’s second baseman, will use Randy Bush and Mark Davidson to replace Brunansky, who entered the season with 165 homers compared to a total of 12 for Bush and Davidson.

Sources say that MacPhail shopped Brunansky in a bid for pitching, considered the Baltimore Orioles’ Mike Boddicker, then opted for a consistent hitter.

It is the pervasive inconsistency of the pitching, however, that plagues the Twins.

The rehabilitation program is already on the verge of collapse.

--Tippy Martinez, the 37-year-old relief pitcher who worked only 16 major league innings in the last two years, was released Wednesday.

--Steve Carlton, 43 years old and 16-37 over the previous three seasons, received what was thought to be a make-or-break start Saturday night against Cleveland and allowed 9 runs and 9 hits in 5-plus innings. Carlton has wokred 9 innings this season and has an ERA of 16.76.

--Joe Niekro, 7-13 last year and now, at 43, banished to the bullpen again with a 17.18 ERA, is said to be in his final days with the Twins.

--Charlie Lea, saddled with arm problems as he appeared in only one major league game over the previous two years, will carry an 0-2 record and 5.56 ERA into today’s start against the Indians.

With Les Straker, 8-10 as the No. 3 starter last year, placed on the disabled list Saturday because of a sore elbow, the only reliables in a beleaguered rotation are Frank Viola and 37-year-old Bert Blyleven, who has a 7.13 ERA after 4 starts.

MacPhail acknowledged that there were mistakes in judgment during the spring.

“Quite frankly, we didn’t make the right evaluations coming out of spring training. We did a good job last year, but this year we got fooled,” he said.

Now, with Carlton and Niekro expected to follow Martinez into forced retirement, the Twins are faced with trying a new cast of retreads from their equally suspect system.

Consider that on Monday night, when the Yankees scored 18 runs in the Metrodome, the Twins’ triple-A team allowed 10 runs, their double-A team allowed 15 and their Class A team gave up 7.

Mike Mason, 29-38 with the Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers, has been recalled to replace Martinez.

Karl Best, who failed with the Seattle Mariners; Jim Winn, who was 11-17 with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago White Sox, and Mark Portugal, 1-10 with the Twins’ Portland, Ore., farm team last year, are the next possibilities.

Twins’ fans may son be crying in their homer hankies.

Will the Orioles’ 0-17 start produce a change of venue for Boddicker?

General Manager Roland Hemond has said he will not cater to opportunistic clubs attempting to take advantage of the Orioles’ plight, but Boddicker, eligible for free agency after the season, figures to be traded.

The veteran right-hander is 0-4 and has lost his last 9 decisions, but he won 14 games two years ago, is only 30, and could profit from a new environment.

In a market thin on pitching, he translates to a package of prospects for a troubled Baltimore farm system.

And Boddicker, for one, expects it to happen. Of his potential free agency, he said: “I think that’s going to be a moot point. I don’t think I’m going to be around here after June 15. If the Orioles intended to keep me, they would have offered me more than a 1-year contract last winter.”

If not traded, friends of the Norway, Iowa, veteran say he will attempt to move on his own next winter, selling his free-agent services to one of two Midwest teams, the Cardinals or Kansas City Royals.

The Boston Red Sox have been among the opportunists knocking on Hemond’s door, reportedly offering prospects for shortstop Cal Ripken, who is also eligible for free agency when the season ends.

Sources say that as confused and frustrated as Ripken is over his father’s firing as manager and his own poor start, he hopes to remain in Baltimore.

Will pitcher Scott McGregor? Winless since May 16 and a loser of 14 of his last 17 decisions, McGregor’s lastest failure Thursday against the Milwaukee Brewers may have convinced management that it will have to eat the last two years of his contract. A guaranteed $975,000 this year and $1 million next year makes it an expensive meal.

Regarding a story on the Orioles’ demise and his reported problems with owner Edward Bennett Williams, former Oriole general manager Hank Peters, now general manager of the Indians, said:

“I had some philosophical differences with the owner, but I’d rather not go into it with the team doing so poorly.

“It’s hard to believe. I mean, it might not be a good club, but it’s certainly not that bad.”

The Rangers had scored one more run than the Orioles through Friday, had hit only 10 home runs and were batting .115 with runners in scoring position. But Texas had won 6 of 15 games, primarily because of the surprising effectiveness of a pitching staff that had a 3.40 ERA.

Manager Bobby Valentine credited catcher Mike Stanley, who is the first player in the clubhouse every day, studies films of his own pitchers and opposing hitters, keeps a book on those hitters and re-copies his notes regarding the opposing team’s lineup two or three times a night.

“I treat it as if I’m studying for a test,” Stanley said. “It’s easier to get exactly right if I go over it two or three times.”

In a three-game Yankee sweep at the Metrodome, Jack Clark had 3 hits and 3 runs batted in Monday night, then a solo homer Wednesday night.

“You’d have to be on your deathbed not to want to swing the bat here,” Clark said, leaving the Cardinals and others to wonder if an ankle injury of the type that kept Clark out of the ’87 World Series with the Twins is terminal.

Mild-mannered and soft-spoken Woody Woodward, general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, went rip city on his team after its seventh straight loss Sunday. The Phillies then won 2 of 3 from the New York Mets.

Woodward’s uncharacteristic blast was designed to shake the Phillies out of their customary April lethargy. In the last four years, they are a composite 10-30 after the first 10 games.

“I take a look at a ballclub carrying one of the top payrolls in the game, and supposedly some of the top performers, and I see that team continually making and executing mistakes made by a double-A team,” Woodward told the Philadelphia Daily News.

He said the infield play “stinks,” that the high-salaried middle of the lineup was failing in its responsibility to drive in runs and that there was apathy seen in the Phillies’ reluctance to break up double plays and brush hitters away from the plate.

“Maybe baseball isn’t played that way anymore,” he said. “Maybe it’s complacency. Maybe we’re just too nice.”

Not Woody. Not anymore.

The Seattle Times ran a telephone poll asking fans what they would say to the erratic and eccentric Steve Trout when he was struggling on the mound. Some of Trout’s Mariner teammates were unhappy about it.

First baseman Alvin Davis said he would no longer cooperate with the paper, charging that the sports editor was “making a mockery of a man’s life.” Designated hitter Ken Phelps called it “garbage.”

But pitching coach Billy Connors said: “Never mind calling the newspaper. If anyone has any ideas, call me.”

Of his team’s 14-3 record and lead in the American League East, Indian co-captain Mel Hall said: “It doesn’t matter if you look at the paper at 3 in the morning or 5 at night, it doesn’t change. We’re for real.”