BASEBALL ROUNDUP : Sutcliffe Plagued by Sore Shoulder

Cubs’ pitcher Rick Sutcliffe is being bothered by a soreness in his right shoulder again, threatening his job in Chicago’s starting rotation.

“Obviously, I’m concerned,” Sutcliffe said Monday at Mesa, Ariz.

The ailing shoulder is the same condition that drained the big right-hander of his effectiveness during the second half of last season.

“I’ll warm up before the game (today) and, if it’s still not right, I won’t pitch,” he said. “I just don’t know much about it yet. It didn’t feel great the other day.”

Pat Combs, the rookie pitcher many think could wind up the ace of the Philadelphia Phillies’ pitching staff this season, is nursing a tender pitching shoulder.

Combs, 4-0 after being promoted from Class AAA last September, walked around the clubhouse Monday with an ice pack on his shoulder.

Everybody in the Phillies organization hastened to play down the situation.

“It’s a little tenderness, no problem,” Manager Nick Leyva said. “He was scheduled to pitch tomorrow (today), but we’ll let him rest.”

“He’s been pushed back a little” to Thursday or Friday, Leyva said.

The Phillies today cut pitchers Dickie Noles and Jose DeJesus from the spring training roster, sending DeJesus to the minors and leaving open the possibility of keeping Noles in the system.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have reassigned right-handed pitcher Mike York to their minor-league camp, leaving the opening-day limit of 27 players on their roster--at least on paper.

Under the compromise agreement reached Monday between the players union and owners, rosters will be expanded to 27 players for the first three weeks of the season. The Pirates’ roster seems set, except that the club is carrying only 10 pitchers, and Manager Jim Leyland plans to go north with 12.

Two minor-league pitchers will be added, barring a last-minute trade.

“It doesn’t make any difference if they have major league experience. . . . If they’re the best guys, they’re going to go with us next Monday,” Leyland said. “We’re definitely going to take 12 pitchers . . . and (backup catcher) Tom Prince will make the club.”

The Cincinnati Reds today optioned pitchers Rosario Rodriguez and Scott Scudder to their Class AAA Nashville farm team.

Rodriguez, a left-hander, and Scudder, a right-hander, both split time last season between the Reds and their minor-league system.

The transfers leave 28 roster and six non-roster players still in the Reds’ big-league camp.

A real estate broker representing out-of-state investors said he would not identify a proposed new Texas Rangers baseball stadium in west Dallas as part of a complex that might also feature football, basketball, horse racing and auto racing, a newspaper reported today.

According to the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, real estate broker Don Shackelford of Arlington, Tex., said Prime Sports Partners Ltd. plans to build a sports complex on 1,017 acres just east of Loop 12 and Interstate 30.

The site, among the highest spots in Dallas County, is about seven miles west of downtown Dallas; about five miles south of Texas Stadium, where the Dallas Cowboys play in suburban Irving, and about 10 miles east of the Rangers’ home, Arlington Stadium.

“We’re offering a sports complex for the Metroplex,” Shackelford said Monday. “It’s not baseball; it’s not anything. It’s just a sports complex.”

Rangers owners are on record as saying Arlington Stadium is inadequate.