Baseball Notes : Viola Should Turn It Around

Frank Viola should be very successful with the New York Mets, especially for the rest of this season. For one, Viola has been a winning pitcher. His career record is 113-93. But what will make Viola especially tough on National League hitters is that they have never seen him before -- and rarely see his style of pitching.

Recent history suggests that when left-handed pitchers such as Viola, whose strikeout pitch is a terrific changeup, move from the American League to the National League, they immediately are successful.

Viola stands to follow John Tudor, Danny Jackson, Mark Langston, Bob Ojeda and Bruce Hurst as winning pitchers in their first National League season. To a lesser degree, Jim Deshaies and Dennis Rasmussen also fit that mold.

Why is that? The American League is a breaking-ball, off-speed league. Jack Clark kept waiting to see fastballs as a Yankee last year and never did.

The National League has more hard throwers. So when these American League pitchers cross over and start throwing good off-speed pitches -- even when they’re behind on the count -- the hitters are confused and slow to adjust.

“There is something to that first-time-around theory,” Ojeda said. “Guys in this league just don’t know what to expect from you. Frank is going to do well anyway. But now he’s got both factors working for him: his experience and that advantage of switching leagues, the newness.”

“The thing about those pitchers,” Phillies Manager Nick Leyva said, “is that, number one, they are all quality guys to begin with. But with all of them, it’s their ability to change speeds so well that makes them so tough. Ojeda, Tudor, Jackson, Viola ... all those guys have outstanding changeups.

“That’s the pitch of the decade, in my opinion. It’s not the split-finger. Don’t get me wrong,” Leyva said, “that’s a good pitch. But the change-up, when it’s a good one and used right, is the toughest pitch to hit. And these guys are not afraid to throw it no matter what the count. They’re not afraid to make a mistake with it.

“They can be 3-and-0 on a guy and still throw it. If they miss and walk the guy, they figure the next guy up is going to have to try to hit the same stuff.

“The pitchers from that league have done very well over here. But the hitters have not had such an impact. The only guy I can think of who came over in recent years and made an immediate impression was Kirk Gibson. Look at Eddie Murray. People thought he was going to hit 50 home runs. He was back home, people said his attitude was better ... and he’s only got, what, 10, 11 or 12 homers (12)?”

Viola figures to make nine, maybe 10 more starts for the Mets this season. He could make a big difference in the pennant race. Now all the Mets have to do is get him some runs so that his advantage of switching leagues isn’t wasted.

The Mets have scored only one run in his 15 innings on the mound for them. He won his first start when the Mets rallied for three runs in the top of the ninth against the Cardinals.

Tudor is often thought of as the classic example of an American League left-hander who ate up the National League. Actually, Tudor was 13-12 with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1984, his first year in the league, before his famous 21-8 season for the 1985 National League champion Cardinals. He blossomed in a larger park with a better defense behind him. Tudor was 50-22 in his 3 1/2 seasons with St. Louis.

Now Tudor’s career appears over because of arm and elbow ailments. And that shocks Whitey Herzog.

“In his four years here,” the Cardinals manager said, “John never threw a breaking ball to a right-handed hitter. It was all fastballs and change-ups. He never spun the ball to a right-hander. He never put that kind of a strain on his arm. I’ve talked to him. John is worried. He has pain in different parts of his shoulder.”

Tudor’s slide-slinging delivery may have had more to do with his arm trouble. But that’s an amazing disclosure, to think that Tudor had all that success while using only two pitches -- neither of them a breaking ball -- against right-handed hitters. And remember that Tudor was so tough on left-handers that teams rarely included left-handers in their lineup against him.

“Yeah, that’s probably true,” confirmed Leyva, the third base coach for St. Louis then. “John was a master at changing speeds.”

The Phillies were beating the Cardinals, 1-0, Sunday when Leyva brought in Roger McDowell to start the ninth inning.

“I was worried about (Pedro) Guerrero and (Tom) Brunansky,” Leyva said. “They were the first two hitters up and they had about five hits between them. Roger gets both of them out just like that. One, two. I wasn’t thinking about the other guy.”

The third hitter was Terry Pendleton. He drilled a 1-and-0 pitch for a game-tying homer. St. Louis won in the 10th inning. McDowell had not allowed an earned run in 25 1-3 innings with the Phillies.

“When he hit it I said, ‘Oh, not again,’ ” Leyva said.

Leyva immediately thought about Sept. 11, 1987. On that night, the Mets were one out away from beating St. Louis and moving to within one-half game of the first-place Cardinals. But Pendleton ripped a two-run homer off McDowell in the ninth to tie it. The Cardinals won in the 10th inning, 6-4, and beat Dwight Gooden the next day, 8-1, for a 2 1/2-game lead.

“That was the night we won the pennant,” Leyva said. “If the Mets win that game and are a half-game out with Gooden going, who knows what might have happened?”

The Phillies have seven games remaining with St. Louis. Maybe Leyva will avoid another McDowell-Pendleton matchup. Pendleton is a career .273 hitter off McDowell with two of his 33 career homers.