BASEBALL : Evidence Mounts That Abbreviated Spring Affected Pitchers

It will never be known for certain to what extent the insult that was the owners’ 32-day spring training lockout contributed to the injuries suffered by Dodger pitcher Orel Hershiser and others.

The one conclusive fact--now that the rosters have been reduced and the equivalent of a normal six- to seven-week training period has elapsed since most camps opened--is that the abbreviated spring had a major and anticipated impact on pitching.

“It threw the balance of the game off-kilter,” Fred Claire, the Dodgers’ executive vice president, said of the three-week training period. “I never want to go back to it.”

Claire will deliver that message to baseball administrator Bill Murray, who has begun polling the 26 clubs regarding ramifications of the shorter spring.

It was once thought that the owners might make the lockout a springboard to permanently reducing the training period, but that seems unlikely.

Looming over the statistical data that documents the shorter stints by starting pitchers and the use of more pitchers per game, there’s the shadow of Hershiser.

“Pitchers need at least a month,” General Manager Lee Thomas of the Philadelphia Phillies said in advocating a return to the normal training cycle.

“Anything less is inviting trouble. I mean, it’s a shame what happened to Orel, and he’s not the only pitcher to go down.

“We would not be doing justice to the game and fans (by shortening spring training).”

What happened to Hershiser, according to Dr. Frank Jobe, is that the wear and tear of 195 consecutive starts devastated his shoulder. One pitch didn’t do it. A full spring training probably would not have prevented it.

Hershiser has acknowledged, however, that he didn’t feel as if he had time to back off and consider an alternative treatment program under the pressure of getting ready in three weeks.

He also did no conditioning on his own, choosing to participate in the bargaining negotiations and support the union recommendation that players resist working out as a team during the lockout, increasing pressure on the owners to get it resolved, a theory as ill-conceived as the lockout itself.

The blame, assuming blame is appropriate, can be easily spread, though Claire said he believes some injuries are being misread and have no connection to the shorter spring.

Indeed, there is no clear link in most cases, and the reality is that there have been fewer injuries than normal.

There were 95 players on the May 1 disabled lists last year and only 72 this year--a significant drop not easily explained.

There also were fewer errors through the same span of 246 games: 370 this year compared to 414 last year. In other words, fundamentals did not seem to suffer because of the shorter spring.

As for hitting and run production, the changes were minimal.

The American League’s cumulative batting average through 246 games rose from .255 in 1989 to .256 in 1990, the National League’s from .243 to .253.

An average of 8.3 runs a game were scored through 246 games this year compared to 8.02 last year.

The impact of the shorter spring is most visible in statistics dealing with pitcher stamina:

--A total of 1,394 worked in the first 246 games of 1989, an average of 5.6 a game. The total climbed to 1,536 in the first 246 games of 1990, an average of 6.2.

--Starting pitchers in 1989 averaged 6 1/3 innings a start and completed 40 of those first 246 games. The starting pitchers in 1990 averaged only 5 1/3 innings, and completed only 15 of the 246 games.

If pitching is the name of the game, baseball was operating under something of an alias during the first month of the season, despite sensational performances such as the Mark Langston-Mike Witt no-hitter for the Angels, the near-perfect game by the Seattle Mariners’ Brian Holman and Nolan Ryan’s 16-strikeout one-hitter for the Texas Rangers.

A lack of endurance in many cases resulted, as Claire noted, in the balance being thrown off-kilter, though everyone had to deal with that same loss of equilibrium.

“Pitchers need five or six weeks to get ready, and hitters do, too,” Claire said. “It’s that simple. The hitters may not need it as far as conditioning (goes), but they certainly need it for sharpness and timing.

“It just seems like we were in a race to get ready, that the pace was faster than it should be when preparing a club for a 162-game season. And the other thing that doesn’t get mentioned much is that I missed seeing our young players in competition against major league talent. We didn’t have time for that.”

In the broad picture, the injury risk is an overriding concern.

The loss of Hershiser obviously weighs on Claire, as does the absence of third baseman Jeff Hamilton, who tried to throw too hard, too soon and is out indefinitely after shoulder surgery Friday.

“We’ve always tried to be extremely careful and cautious (in) conditioning our players,” Claire said. “Yet all of us recognize that there was a timetable there this spring that’s unnecessary, that we just don’t need again. It would be a major mistake.

“I mean, it’s never before been clearer to me that five or six weeks is the proper framework.”

Two lockout stories:

--Jack Armstrong is a 25-year-old right-hander who was 6-10 with a 5.33 earned-run average in parts of two seasons with the Cincinnati Reds and thought he faced a make-or-break situation this spring.

Frustrated by the lockout and with only $200 in the bank, Armstrong took out a $5,000 loan, left his wife and two-month-old son at home in Neptune, N.J., and traveled to Florida, where he drove from one high school field to another, looking for a batterymate.

“I’d go through one catcher, then go looking for another,” he said. “I had $100 when the lockout ended, but my arm was ready. I’ve never been stronger.”

Armstrong credits that preparation for his 5-0 record as the emerging ace of the Reds’ staff.

--After missing the entire 1989 season because of back surgery, Dave Winfield, 38, apparently needed more than three weeks to prepare for his return.

Winfield was nine for 49, and hitless in his last 22 at-bats, as he arrived in Anaheim with the New York Yankees Friday, unhappily having been reduced to sharing left field with Claudell Washington.

“I know that given a normal amount of time, I can be one of the most productive outfielders in the league (for) putting numbers up,” Winfield said. “I’m not a platoon player. I don’t think they would have done this with Don Mattingly if he went into a two-week slump.”

The Yankees’ record of 7-13, going into the weekend series, represented their worst start in 18 years. They had scored more than one run in only four of their last 86 innings, the offense--last in the league in runs and ninth in home runs--a pale imitation of a proud tradition.

And what might the lineup card have looked like if Rickey Henderson and Jack Clark were still teammates of Winfield, Mattingly and Steve Sax?

But Clark was traded to San Diego after the 1988 season for pitchers Jimmy Jones and Lance McCullers and outfielder Stan Jefferson, and Henderson went to Oakland eight months later for pitchers Eric Plunk and Greg Cadaret and outfielder Luis Polonia.

Only McCullers, Plunk and Cadaret are still with the Yankees, and each is employed in middle relief.

“I’m not taking anything away from the guys they got, but when you trade two of the best players in the game, you have to get a top player in return,” Henderson said in New York the other day. “You don’t get guys who are still trying to prove themselves. What the Yankees got was absolutely nothing.”

Since the second of the trades, the Yankees were 49-64 before Saturday night’s game.

“They ruined that team,” Henderson said. “They had a lot of good players they could have built around for a few years. But they’re always switching so much. They just don’t give anything a chance.”

The Atlanta Braves experienced their 16th consecutive losing month in April, but the vaunted young pitching staff seems to have found itself, producing a five-game winning streak and a streak of 11 games in which the starting pitcher went seven innings or more.

Whether it can save Russ Nixon’s job as manager is unclear. Nixon apparently did not help himself with his handling of the Nick Esasky situation.

Esasky, signed as a $5.6-million free agent during the winter, is on the disabled list with a vertigo condition that doctors believe stems from a virus, though they have not been able to isolate it.

Esasky told Atlanta reporters that he sees a halo around the ball and can’t focus on a moving object. He said that when he told Nixon about it, the manager asked him to stay in the lineup for a few more days, a period during which Esasky, unable to see the ball clearly, dived for a pop-up and injured his shoulder, complicating his recovery.

Andre Dawson enjoyed a spectacular West Coast swing with the Chicago Cubs, going 14 for 32 in eight games, with three home runs and 10 runs batted in. The performance eased some of the concern regarding Dawson’s tender knees. Although he did not play in the field even once during the spring, after having winter surgery, Dawson said he is still experiencing late-game stiffness.

Meanwhile, pitcher Rick Sutcliffe will have exploratory surgery Monday for the shoulder ailment that hindered him during the second half of last season and put him on the disabled list at the start of this season.

Veteran pitcher Bill Long, recently acquired by the Cubs, said he has always wanted to play for Manager Don Zimmer.

Why?

“That enthusiasm, that face,” Long said.

Voters in Cleveland will cast their ballots Tuesday on financing a new downtown stadium. Commissioner Fay Vincent, doing a little lobbying, said eight to 10 cities are waiting for a team and the Indians might meet the criteria for moving if a new stadium is rejected.

The National League, meanwhile, said this week it will not announce expansion plans until 1991.

Although only a rookie, Gary Sheffield criticized Milwaukee pitchers last year for failing to protect their hitters. It’s a new year, and the Brewers have been in three fights already, with reliever Chuck Crim having been ejected twice for hitting batters.

“We’re not proud of being involved in those things, but we do have team pride,” said Manager Tom Trebelhorn, who also has reason to be proud of his starting pitchers, who were 10-0 through Friday.