UNPOPULAR MECHANICS : McDowell Prefers to Be Left to His Own Devices in Attempt to Return to White Sox

It was April Fools’ Day, the final workout of spring training, but the mood was anything but jocular for three young Chicago White Sox pitchers awaiting word of their fate.

Only a few positions were available on the White Sox staff and Jack McDowell, with slightly more than a full season of major league service, stood in the outfield coolly imparting a veteran’s words of wisdom to the less-experienced trio of Donn Pall, Ken Patterson and Steve Rosenberg.

“Don’t worry if you’re sent back to triple A,” McDowell said as he trotted off to answer what he thought was an informal summons from Manager Jeff Torborg. “Stay fired up. You’ll be back.”

Three months and a career’s worth of frustration later, McDowell is in Sarasota, Fla., attempting to heed his own advice.

After a disastrous 1 1/2-month stint at triple-A Vancouver in the Pacific Coast League, a three-week sabbatical at home in Van Nuys and a visit with orthopedic specialist Dr. Robert Kerlan, McDowell, 23, is on rehabilitative assignment with the White Sox’s affiliate in the Gulf Coast Rookie League.

Daily workouts on the mound and in the weight room at Ed Smith Complex are designed to help the 6-foot-5, 179-pound McDowell recapture the form that made him the fifth player selected in the 1987 draft after pitching Stanford to its first National Collegiate Athletic Assn. championship.

“Jack is getting his delivery back to where it was when he signed,” said Al Goldis, the White Sox director of scouting and player development. “He looks like he did when I saw him at Stanford.”

Last Monday, McDowell pitched competitively for the first time since May 16, allowing one run and no walks during a four inning, 70-pitch appearance against the Montreal Expos’ Gulf Coast League affiliate.

“It felt a little weird being out there in a game,” McDowell said by phone from Sarasota. “But it was exactly what I needed.”

As McDowell gains arm strength, it is becoming increasingly clear that the most important thing he needs is to be left alone.

While pitching at Notre Dame High, McDowell unknowingly developed mechanics that compensated for a chronic hip problem and allowed him to eventually become an All-American at Stanford. Those mechanics, however, gradually degenerated over the past two seasons as White Sox instructors tinkered with their hard-throwing protege.

McDowell broke in with the White Sox in September, 1987, and finished the season 3-0 with a 1.93 earned-run average. At that time, the only thing it looked like he would require was plenty of room to store future postseason awards.

As expected, McDowell made the major league club after spring training in 1988. He compiled a 5-10 record for the hapless Sox but had a respectable 3.97 ERA before suffering a groin injury that caused him to miss the final five weeks of the season.

This spring, he was 1-1 with a 4.03 ERA when he was demoted the day before the White Sox broke camp for their opener against the Angels at Anaheim Stadium. “It wasn’t his fault, but the time away from competing at the major league level hurt Jack,” said Larry Himes, general manager of the White Sox. “He came down to spring training this year not completely ready to compete because of the injury. We didn’t see the pop in his fastball.”

McDowell, however, said that he was suffering from over-coaching--something he had been warned about when he first came up to to the major leagues in 1987.

“The third day I was in Chicago (former White Sox pitcher) Floyd Bannister told me, ‘Hey, everybody is going to want a piece of you,’ ” McDowell said. “They get a guy who’s 22 and a hard thrower in the big leagues and they want you to be the best, but sometimes they can get a little carried away. It’s a tough thing to sort out the advice you get from people that say, ‘If you do this, you could be great.’

“The last five workouts during spring training they had me doing something different each time. I was thinking mechanics so much, I became a mechanical pitcher.”

Despite his troubles, McDowell was confident he’d get the opportunity to work them out in the major leagues. Torborg and the White Sox brass thought otherwise.

“It was a shock,” McDowell said of his demotion, adding that he went through periods during which he would go back and forth between laughing and being angry.

“Since it was April Fools’ Day, I’d tell guys that I just got sent down and they said, ‘Right!’

“The equipment guy wouldn’t even pack my gear because he thought I was joking.”

McDowell’s experience in Vancouver did nothing to cheer him. His arm felt tired and he had no sense of rhythm. He compiled a 1-2 record and an 8.70 ERA in seven games. In 30 innings, he surrendered 44 hits and issued 13 walks but only struck out 12.

Things bottomed out May 18 when McDowell bolted from a bullpen mound during a workout between starts.

“Basically, I walked off and said, ‘This is a joke, I can’t do anything. I need to talk to someone and see what the deal is,’ ” McDowell said.

He returned to Van Nuys, studied old tapes of himself and worked out with his brother Jim. He also visited Kerlan, who diagnosed McDowell’s injury as a slipped capital femoral epiphysis in the left hip. The condition causes a flattening of the top of the femur, preventing it from fitting and moving properly into the hip socket.

“Not knowing his underlying problem, they (the White Sox) didn’t think that the motion that he developed at Stanford was really what they wanted in the major leagues,” Kerlan said. “They had him make changes, and, in so doing, it caused stress on his arm.”

Kerlan advised the White Sox to let McDowell return to his old style of throwing. So far, the results have been positive.

“I talked to Jack and said, ‘I want to make sure this doesn’t happen again,’ ” Himes said. “We want him to spend as much time as it takes to develop durability and arm strength.”

McDowell, however, has his own timetable. “I’d like to get back up to Chicago and catch the second half of the season,” he said. “I’m looking forward to coming in and having a positive influence on the team. Right now, though, it just feels good to be getting back to normal.”