Brunansky Quickly at Home With New Team, New League

Tom Brunansky, the new muscle man of the St. Louis Cardinals, was talking before Thursday’s game about his switch last week from the American League to the National.

“The way I see it,” he said, “I’m not going to make the adjustment in three or four games. It’s going to take a few months.”

So much for theories. Brunansky had already hit his first home run as a Cardinal Wednesday night, and he hit two more Thursday to lead his new team to a 6-4 victory over the Padres at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Perhaps anyone who sympathized with the Cardinals over the defection of slugger Jack Clark to the New York Yankees can stop worrying. The Cardinals may have found a worthy replacement in Brunansky, who averaged 27 home runs in six seasons with the Minnesota Twins before being traded last Friday for second baseman Tommy Herr.

This is not to say that Brunansky is as prolific a bomber as Clark, who hit 35 home runs last year although he missed most of the final month with an ankle injury. Whitey Herzog, the Cardinal manager, made this point quite emphatically Thursday.

When a reporter asked Herzog if he thought Brunansky would hit as many home runs as Clark, Herzog said simply, “No.”

When the reporter asked, “Why?” Herzog let his well-documented temper get the better of him. He bolted out of his chair and said, “Why? I don’t know why. You just asked me that question, and I said no. Why do I have to say why?”

In any case, the Cardinals made an exceptional deal when they got Brunansky from the club that beat them in the 1987 World Series. Herr is a fine second baseman, but the Cardinals could spare him because they had an outstanding prospect at Louisville in Luis Alicea.

“We needed a right fielder badly,” Herzog said. “Herr was in the walking year of his contract, so when we had a chance to get Brunansky for him, we jumped at it. We’ve already lost Clark and (Bruce) Sutter as free agents, and we can’t afford to keep losing those guys and get nothing back.

“We were in a bind. (Jim) Lindeman was going lousy, and then he hurt his back. Now he’s on the disabled list, and he may need surgery. It was tough to trade Tommy; he’s been like a son to me, but we had to do something.”

The Cardinals did something, all right, and the Padres were the first team to pay for it. Brunansky’s home run Wednesday night made the difference in a 2-1 St. Louis victory that ended the Padres’ four-game winning streak. His two home runs Thursday produced three runs and keyed a Cardinal comeback from an early 2-0 deficit.

All three landed in the left-field lower deck--in almost the same spot. And Brunansky hit all three sky high, a la Dave Kingman and Frank Howard.

“That’s the only kind of home runs I hit,” Brunansky said. “If I hit a line drive, I get too much topspin on it, and I hit it down.”

Although Brunansky is moving from a home-run haven in Minneapolis to a pitcher’s paradise in St. Louis, there was little doubt that all three would have reached the seats at spacious Busch Memorial Stadium.

As Padre Manager Larry Bowa put it, “He can really put hurt on a ball that’s up.”

Brunansky’s victims Thursday were Ed Whitson and Mark Grant, and he said he had profited both times from fat pitches.

“I hit mistakes,” Brunansky said. “That’s all I ever hit. Just about 100% of my home runs are hit on mistakes. I rarely hit a pitcher’s pitch for a home run.”

Brunansky, 27, derived particular pleasure from his first three National League homers because most of his family was here from Covina to see them.

“Even my sister got a chance to come down today,” he said. “Now they’ll all be able to see me in L.A. over the weekend.”

Brunansky had been struggling with the Twins, hitting only .178 with one home run in 14 games. With the Cardinals, he not only has three times as many home runs in just five games; he is hitting exactly 100 points higher.

“I’ve just been lucky enough to get my pitches,” he said. “As well as I hit here, I’m not kidding myself about having to adjust to the pitchers in this league. I don’t know any of these guys, so I’m just sort of flying blind right now.

“It helps to get tips from the other guys on what the pitchers throw, but you really have to get to know them on your own.

“Until I’ve been around the league, I’ll have to be especially aggressive. I’ll have to guess with the pitchers and not let the count get to 0-2.”