Baseball : Giants’ Craig Has Another Healthy Case of Spring Optimism

A year ago, addressing his full squad for the first time in the spring and inviting reporters to listen, Manager Roger Craig of the San Francisco Giants provided fuel for opposing teams and second-guessers.

Craig told the Giants that they were the best team in baseball and should win the National League pennant they narrowly missed winning in the 1987 playoff with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Craig believed it, but his team didn’t get a chance to prove it.

Riddled by injuries, particularly to the pitching staff, the Giants won only one title: the American Medical Assn.’s team of the year.

“In all my years as a player, coach and manager, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Craig said of the injuries at a recent workout.

The sun was bright and warm, though, and Craig’s confidence was shining again.

“That’s what is great about baseball,” he said. “Last year is over and done with. Everyone comes to spring training thinking they have a chance to win, and we’ve got as good a chance as anyone.”

How bad was it in 1988? Bad enough that the Giants considered installing a revolving door to the clubhouse.

The club made 79 player transactions from opening day to last. Craig used 18 pitchers, among them 12 starters. Of the original five, only Rick Reuschel failed to miss a turn. Among the 26 teams, only the St. Louis Cardinals and Baltimore Orioles received fewer starts from their season-opening rotations.

And since the start of last season, four Giant pitchers have had surgery.

Dave Dravecky underwent shoulder surgery June 11, then had a cancerous tumor removed from his left arm Oct. 7. Mike LaCoss had elbow surgery July 21; Mike Krukow shoulder surgery Sept. 13, and Joe Price shoulder surgery Oct. 4.

Terry Mulholland typified the Giants’ fate last year. Recalled May 5, during the early injury wave, Mulholland had a 3.72 earned-run average in spot roles when he broke his left wrist Aug. 1 and didn’t pitch again.

“We hung in pretty good until the last month, when all the injuries just caught up with us,” Craig said, his Giants having finished fourth in the West, 11 1/2 games behind the first-place Dodgers.

Craig starts the new spring knowing that Dravecky won’t be available until the second half, if then, and uncertain that Krukow will be available opening day.

He plans to go with a rotation of Reuschel, Kelly Downs, Don Robinson, Atlee Hammaker and either Mulholland or Krukow.

The Giants learned last season that Robinson could be as effective starting as relieving.

“It was one of the few good things that happened for us,” Craig said.

He is hoping for others now, among them the arrival of third baseman Matt Williams, the Giants’ No. 1 draft choice of 1986. If Williams plays third, Kevin Mitchell, who had knee surgery in October, can move to left, joining center fielder Brett Butler and right fielder Candy Maldonado.

“This year will be a real challenge for us,” Craig said. “In ’85 (when Jim Davenport managed the team into September), we lost 100 games. Then we won 83 in ‘86, won the division in ’87 and had all the injuries last year.

“We didn’t make a lot of changes because we feel we can win with what we’ve got.

“Nobody has a better first baseman (than Will Clark), and we’re as strong up the middle (with shortstop Jose Uribe, second baseman Rob Thompson and center fielder Butler) as anyone. Pitching is the key. We’ve got to stay healthy.

“Our division gets stronger every year. I mean, people say the best team didn’t win last year, but I think the best team did. The Dodgers are tough and full of confidence. The (San Diego) Padres are obviously tougher now. The (Cincinnati) Reds have an abundance of talent, probably the best in the division for the last three years, and Houston still has that pitching.

“This might be the strongest five teams we’ve had in a long time,” Craig said, obviously counting the Giants among the five and obviously counting on having five starting pitchers.

According to trainer Mark Letendre, the Giants have reordered their thinking about Dravecky, the 33-year-old left-hander.

“First, we want him to come back and be a full human being,” Letendre said. “Then, God willing, there’s baseball.”

The malignant tumor removed from his left arm in October was self-enclosed, Letendre said, removing the need for chemotherapy or other treatment because there is no risk of that specific tumor spreading.

Dravecky is doing his rehabilitative work in Youngstown, Ohio. His task is considerable.

In removing the tumor, doctors also removed a third of the deltoid muscle, which is three shoulder muscles in one, according to Letendre--front, middle and back. The back portion is now gone, meaning that Dravecky must strengthen and train the remaining portions to assume the work load.

In addition, the tumor was so close to the humerus, the principal bone of the upper arm, that the bone had to be frozen, leaving the risk of a stress fracture if Dravecky tried to do too much too soon.

This, Letendre said, is why Dravecky is working out at home instead of with the Giants in Arizona. He is scheduled to join the club just before the start of the season, and will then continue his therapy in San Francisco. Last year he made only seven appearances.

The year before?

“We got him (from the Padres) in mid-season and I thought he was the best pitcher in the league down the stretch and in the playoffs,” Craig said.

Said Letendre: “So far it’s going well. He hasn’t had any setbacks. He’s throwing a football. Once he gets to San Francisco, he’ll begin working more on baseball skills. Beyond that we’re looking into a crystal ball.”

While awaiting the arrival of Pedro Guerrero, an annual rite of spring, Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog said a key to getting along with Guerrero is to feed his feeling of importance.

“But you can make him feel important all you want,” Herzog said. “He still has to get to the park on time and do the same things as the other guys.

“If he wants to go out and do it, Pedro can be as good as ever.

“I’ll tell you what, the Dodgers don’t have a hitter like Pedro.”

The Dodgers dealt Guerrero for John Tudor last summer. Guerrero had been sidelined much of the season by a neck injury and had said he didn’t want to risk further injury and his free-agent potential at the end of the year by playing before he was 100%.

Herzog seems to think the Dodgers have tried to taint Guerrero’s image to add legitimacy to the trade.

“Pedro was saying he didn’t want to play until he was 100% and got a new contract. All of a sudden he was a bad guy. Everybody was bad-mouthing him,” Herzog said. “But you don’t stay in an organization for 10 years if you’re not a good guy.”

The Cardinals have brought in Malcolm (Bunny) Mick as a bunting instructor to work with Vince Coleman. Mick, 65, had written the organization, offering his help. In 1949, playing for Belleville, Ill., Mick batted .354, drew 104 walks and struck out only three times.

“Why should I mind,” Coleman said of the tutoring. “If I can cut down on my strikeouts, I can earn a million dollars.”

Said Herzog, who is known as the White Rat: “What a society we have when a rat brings in a bunny to help a rabbit.”

Last add Cardinals: Their 1988 injury siege has become almost an annual event, and Herzog fears he still doesn’t have enough depth.

“If we have the type injuries we had last year and play like we did, we have a chance to finish last,” he said. “By the same token, if we play like we can and stay healthy, we have a chance to finish first.

“It’s just awfully hard not to look at history, and our history (of injuries) is terrible.”

Injuries or not, the Cardinals and others in the National League East may not have a chance against the New York Mets.

“There’s no question we should win,” Met Manager Davey Johnson said in the first week of camp. “If we play the way we should, we should dominate. We have the best young pitching I’ve ever seen. We’ve got the strongest triple-A staff in the minors. We’ve got depth in the infield and outfield. Only Oakland may be close.”

Rafael Santana arrived in the New York Yankees’ camp in time to hear Manager Dallas Green describe him as a “high-error shortstop,” increasing speculation that the Yankees are attempting to pry promising Jeff Blauser from the Atlanta Braves.