TOO GOOD? : Harvey Blames Healthy Arm for Wild Times This Season

The smoke seldom clears when Bryan Harvey pitches anymore. That’s because Angel Manager Doug Rader keeps lighting up, cigarette after nervous cigarette, while Harvey goes through his new routine of working counts full and then the bases full.

Fourteen walks in his past 10 appearances. Four of them in his most recent outing--an excruciating eight-batter stint last Saturday that only set the scene for Mike Devereaux’s incredible foul pole-bending home run. If Harvey were a starting pitcher, he’d be averaging nearly nine walks per complete game.

A year ago, he was the American League’s rookie of the year runner-up. This year, he’s only bidding to become the next Don Stanhouse, the former Baltimore Oriole and Dodger wild man who used to go by the apt nickname, Full Pack.

So, Bryan Harvey, ace of the Angel bullpen, what gives?

“It’s my arm,” Harvey says. “It feels too good.”

Come again?

Come along, Harvey says, as he prepares to take you on a brief travelogue of his five-year professional pitching career.

In 1985, Harvey broke in with Class-A Quad City and struck out 111, walking a mere 37, in 81 2/3 innings.

“My arm hurt,” Harvey said.

In 1986, Harvey saved 15 games for Class-A Palm Springs, walking 38 in 57 innings.

“My arm hurt again,” Harvey said.

In 1987, he saved 20 games for Double-A Midland, striking out 78 and walking 28 in 53 innings.

“I started the season on the DL,” Harvey said.

And in 1988, Harvey led the Angels in saves with 17 while walking just 20 in 76 innings.

“I ended the season on the DL,” he said.

Harvey was placed there last September for the purpose of having bone chips removed from his pitching elbow. Surgery and rehabilitation complete, Harvey returned to the Angels this spring pain-free--and, often in recent weeks, control-free.

“Now that I ain’t hurtin’,” Harvey complains, “I can’t find home plate.”

According to Harvey, his arm feels so good, so strong, that he can’t help but overthrow. The arm now knows no boundaries, including that of the strike zone.

“It kinda does feel like a new arm,” he says. “Now, when I rare back and cut loose, I know there’s nothing back there. I can go wide-open now.

“Maybe last year, that’s why I stayed under control a little more.”

Aside from some frayed nerves and some jammed ashtrays, the Angel coaching staff doesn’t appear overly concerned with Harvey’s recent walk on the wild side.

Just the opposite, it’s become kind of a running gag among them.

The other day in the visiting coaches dressing room in Toronto, bullpen coach Joe Coleman trotted out the routine for a reporter.

‘If he keeps struggling,” Coleman said, “we’re going to have Dr. (Lewis) Yocum put the bone chips back in.”

“Yeah,” Rader interrupted. “Bone-chip reversal.”

And from the back of the room, pitching coach Marcel Lachemann chimed in with, “It’s the first time that surgery’s ever been done. We’re waiting for a transplant. I’ve got a bone spur he can have if he wants it.”

Harvey plays along, too, kidding about the pair of one-inning stints he completed last week without walking a batter.

“ Two innings without a walk ,” Harvey said in mock amazement. “A record.”

Of course, the Angels remain tied for first in the AL West, so there is no real urgency surrounding Harvey’s wanderings yet. As Coleman points out, “He’s still saved 12 out of 16 opportunities. That’s still one of the best marks in the league.”

And from Rader: “He’s had a few awkward outings, but they’re going to come. Look at (Cleveland’s) Doug Jones. What did he give up the other night--four runs in the ninth? Everybody does it.

“He’s not going to succeed every time he goes out there. I imagine there are some, oh, modifications he’ll need to make in his delivery, because his arm feels different.

“But we just have to keep plugging him in there. Everybody goes through bad times. You just have to persevere and stay the course.”

And hope Harvey’s new souped-up fastball does the same.

“The thing of it is,” Harvey says, “I haven’t really been hit around lately. It could be a lot worse than it’s been. I’m just walking guys.

“I haven’t been this strong in a while and I haven’t been able to find a good groove. But I’m gonna find it. I thought it was (getting) close till Baltimore.”

One less walk by Harvey in Baltimore and maybe Devereaux never gets a chance to bat in the ninth ... and maybe umpire Jim Joyce never has to make a can’t-win judgment call ... and maybe Rader never has to say all those inflammatory things about Frank Robinson’s relationship with certain AL umpires.

“I got the fire goin’, didn’t I?” Harvey said.

For Rader’s sake, Harvey realizes he soon has to start putting fires out. This trip down Tobacco Road must end some time.