Life on Road Has Agreed With Pirates

Twice they visited three cities in 24 hours.

“That has to be a major-league record,” bullpen coach Rich Donnelly said. “We’re like Bingo Long.”

Once they didn’t bother checking into a hotel.

“We won’t even have time to eat the mints off the pillows,” Donnelly explained.

So, how did those wacky Pittsburgh Pirates make out when they played 11 straight days in five different cities?

They went 10-1, jumping from a fourth-place tie to a three-game lead in the National League East.

Any trip to Chicago and the West Coast is grueling, but the Pirates went everywhere but the Caribbean when two makeups in St. Louis were scheduled on off days.

For those keeping score at home, they traveled from Pittsburgh to St. Louis to Chicago to St. Louis to San Francisco to San Diego before finally getting a day off in Los Angeles.

Naturally, they then lost two straight to the Dodgers.

By any measure, the trip was still a smashing success. The Pirates swept the Cubs, Giants and Padres, batting .288 with 16 homers in the first 11 games. Their staff ERA in that stretch was below 2.50.

Wally Backman went 6 for 6 one day in San Diego. Barry Bonds was 9 for 12 with three homers in that series. Jay Bell (eight career homers) crushed one over the center-field wall.

Then there was the day in San Francisco when left-hander Scott Ruskin, the converted outfielder, made a double error allowing Brett Butler to reach third with none out and the score 3-3 in the eighth inning.

What happened?

Ruskin struck out Robby Thompson and Will Clark, then escaped the jam when Kevin Bass grounded into a fielder’s choice after an intentional walk to Kevin Mitchell.

The Pirates won 7-4 in 12 innings.

It was that kind of trip.

The Philadelphia Phillies never tire of finding new ways to torment rookie left-hander Chuck McElroy.

On Opening Day at Wrigley Field, reliever Roger McDowell handed McElroy a French horn moments before the national anthem was played. He told him the louder he blew, the better the Phils’ luck would be.

McElroy wound up with a face full of talcum powder.

Last Sunday, the Phillies painted his shoes with sayings like “Just coolin”’ and “Yo baby,” then made him wear them on their charter flight to Cincinnati and that night in the team hotel.

And the Sunday before that, catcher Darren Daulton told McElroy that General Manager Lee Thomas was furious he missed curfew. McElroy quickly apologized to Thomas, then rushed to the phone to take a call from club owner Bill Giles.

He got an earful of shaving cream.

The Phillies have no team curfew.

The big story in Milwaukee is the starting rotation’s 11-0 record and 2.31 ERA, but there are other factors behind the Brewers’ 14-6 start and 2 1/2-game lead in the American League East.

Their three top RBI men are Gary Sheffield (13), Dave Parker (12) and Greg Vaughn (12), none of whom was a major contributor to the Milwaukee offense last season.

The Brewers have scored first in each of their 20 games -- the stingy starters are a big reason -- and they’re also playing slightly better defense than last season, when they committed an American League-high 155 errors.

Of course, it all starts with that great pitching: Teddy Higuera is 3-0 with a 0.99 ERA, Chris Bosio is 3-0, 1.32 and Mark Knudson is 2-0, 2.21.

Another starter, Tom Filer, had thrown 12 shutout innings in two starts before going on the 15-day disabled list with shoulder tendinitis last weekend.

Oh, there’s a race between Kansas City and Oakland all right: The Royals have hit seven home runs, the same number as both Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire.

The Royals always seem to start slowly, but they’ve reached a new low in a year they were expected to compete for the division title. Their 6-14 record after 20 games is the worst in their 22-year club history.

George Brett is batting .203 with two extra-base hits, and he already has 12 strikeouts in 74 at-bats; his career-high is 51. Bo Jackson is batting .311, but with only one homer and 22 strikeouts in 56 at-bats.

Hitting isn’t the Royals’ only problem: Their 4.81 earned run average after Thursday night’s 9-5 loss to Milwaukee is the second worst in the league. Storm Davis, Bret Saberhagen and Mark Gubicza are a combined 3-10.

“CONEHEAD THE BONEHEAD”: That was the New York Daily News headline the morning after New York Mets pitcher David Cone allowed two runs to score while arguing with umpire Charlie Williams in a 7-4 loss at Atlanta.

Not to be outdone, The New York Post ran a picture of Cone with a dunce cap superimposed on his head. Why, even the electronic media got into the act.

“I heard one radio station kept replaying the call of the play,” Cone said. “Every time it ended, somebody said, ‘What a moron.’ ”

Manager Davey Johnson said Cone suffered “double vapor lock,” but declined to fine his pitcher. As the beleaguered Cone said, “Living with it is bad enough. No amount of money could make it worse.”

UGLY GAME OF THE WEEK -- It had to be Houston’s 14-4 loss to Philadelphia Wednesday night, a nifty little disaster that increased the Astros’ team ERA from 2.82 to 3.35.

The Astros had allowed only 18 earned runs their previous 102 1-3 innings for a stunning 1.58 ERA. But the Phillies scored eight times in the sixth, their biggest inning in nearly four years.

Tom Herr went 3 for 3 with men in scoring position after starting the season 0 for 13. Pitcher Dennis Cook stroked two singles after going hitless in his first nine at-bats.

Then there was Astros pitcher Xavier Hernandez, whose ERA registered at 10.29 after he was charged with eight runs in 1 2-3 innings. He started the season with 5 1-3 scoreless innings.

UGLY PITCHING LINE OF THE WEEK -- With apologies to Hernandez, it belonged to Cleveland right-hander Jeff Shaw, who made his major-league debut Monday night against Toronto:

IP 5 1-3, H 11, ER 6, HR 4

Shaw’s family lives outside Columbus, Ohio, and his father greeted him with these words after the Indians’ 10-4 loss:

“Welcome to the big leagues, kid. It can’t get any worse than this.”

GIVE HIM THE TROPHY -- St. Louis left-hander John Tudor already deserves the National League comeback player award. Tudor, the league’s Pitcher of the Month for April, is 4-0 with an 0.96 ERA. He pitched only six games for Los Angeles last year after off-season surgery on his shoulder, elbow and knee.

The Dodgers, of course, traded Pedro Guerrero to St. Louis for Tudor in August 1988. Now it turns out the Cardinals have both players: They signed Tudor, 36, as a free agent last winter. The Dodgers went nine days without a homer at the end of April. Guerrero had six homers and 21 RBI his first 21 games.

HOW TIMES CHANGE -- Two left-handers who won 18 games last season are 0-4 -- the Orioles’ Jeff Ballard and St. Louis’ Joe Magrane. Last year’s National League ERA champion, San Francisco’s Scott Garrelts, is 0-3. So is Andy Hawkins, the only Yankees pitcher with more than seven wins in ’89.

Meanwhile, Cleveland’s Bud Black (12-11 last year) is 3-0, Pittsburgh’s Neal Heaton (6-7) is 4-0, and the Mets’ Frank Viola (13-17) is 5-0. Viola has allowed four earned runs in 36 1-3 innings for an 0.98 ERA. He has struck out 40 and walked three.

FORMER ORIOLE FACTOR -- Is it possible Terry Kennedy will challenge San Francisco teammate Will Clark in the National League batting race? Through 15 games, Kennedy is 17 for 43 (.395), and only a few plate appearances shy of qualifying for the league leaders.

Kennedy already has six doubles -- he hit a total of 10 for the Orioles in 1988 -- but no homers and only three RBI. Defensively, he’s 3 for 11 throwing out baserunners attempting to steal. The Giants’ other catcher, Gary Carter, is 1 for 12.

AROUND THE HORN -- California was the only American League team with a lower batting average than the Orioles at the start of the week, but the teams switched positions after the Angels won two of three games at Memorial Stadium. The Orioles trail .234-.231 after leading .237-.232.

More on the Orioles’ struggles: Their only two victories in their last nine games resulted from game-winning, sudden-death hits by Rene Gonzales and Brady Anderson. Those noted sluggers entered the season with a combined .214 average in 1,110 major-league at-bats.

Chicago White Sox Manager Jeff Torborg said he will miss his club’s May 15 game against the Orioles to attend his son’s graduation from Columbia the next morning. “I am not missing it,” Torborg said. “$20,000 a year, I’m not missing it.”

Think Cal Ripken is struggling? Boston’s Mike Greenwell is 0 for 25 with runners in scoring position. He was robbed of a three-run homer Monday night by Seattle right fielder Darnell Coles. Greenwell, however, hit two bases-empty shots last Friday against Oakland.