Neidlinger No Stranger to Pressure

Jim Neidlinger said he will approach the most important start of his budding major league career tonight as would any former United Parcel Service worker who has pitched everywhere from Buffalo to Venezuela, experiencing everything from a rock-throwing crowd to the birth of his first child.

“I will come to the park, grab a cup of coffee, sit right here in front of my locker and relax,” he said. “I know about the importance of keeping everything under control.”

The Dodgers could do worse than rely on this apparently unflappable pitcher in tonight’s opener of a three-game series against the National League West-leading Cincinnati Reds.

The Dodgers need a series sweep as badly as Neidlinger (pronounced NYDE-linger) once needed a chance.

“When I came to the Dodgers’ organization (in 1989), I remember sitting down with minor league instructor Dave Wallace and telling him, ‘Look, I’m a good person. I don’t complain or moan, all I want is an opportunity to pitch--at triple A,’ ” said Neidlinger, who had spent five years buried in the Pittsburgh organization. “That’s how low I was. I wasn’t even thinking about the major leagues.”

The Dodgers gave him that chance, both at triple-A Albuquerque last season and then with scout Phil Regan at Caracas, Venezuela, last winter. He was impressive in both leagues, then continued to show glimpses of promise at Albuquerque this season until, on July 30, he was recalled to the major leagues by a team desperate for a fifth starter. He arrived with a good curveball, a good head for pitching and a down-to-earth appreciation of things.

Neidlinger, 25, calmly gave up one earned run in his first start, no earned runs in his second start, two earned runs in his third start and has rarely flinched since.

In seven starts, he is 3-1 with a 3.20 earned-run average. He has given up 42 hits in 45 innings, struck out 31 and walked 11.

He has faced the Reds once, in a 1-0 loss Aug. 7. In 7 2/3 innings, only Paul O’Neill managed a base hit against him, hitting two singles.

“This guy is for real,” said the Reds’ Barry Larkin of Neidlinger. “He is a major league pitcher.”

Neidlinger remembers that game for another reason. In Albuquerque, his wife Ann had visited a local sports bar to watch the game on satellite television. When the owner asked her why she was cheering so loudly, she announced that the pitcher was her husband. Soon the entire bar was cheering.

“Every minute I am here, I savor,” Neidlinger said.

It is no coincidence that the only two times he has struggled, the Dodgers gave him plenty of runs early.

Against Montreal at Dodger Stadium on Aug. 17, he nearly blew a 7-0 lead, giving up five runs in five innings. Three starts later, in Montreal, he struggled with a 12-2 lead and was removed from the game in the fifth inning, one out short of qualifying for a victory.

“I am not used to having things easy, to being able to relax,” said Neidlinger, who has pitched well in three one-run games and another that was tied when he left. “I’m much better in the tight games. I’m used to the pressure.”

Pressure, Neidlinger will tell you, is working for UPS in a Vermont winter, loading trucks and helping with delivery for up to 70 hours a week during the Christmas season. He did that while struggling in anonymity for the Pirates, pitching in only seven triple-A games in five seasons despite double-A success that included two years of ERAs under 3.00.

“Plain and simple, for whatever reason, they buried me,” said Neidlinger, who signed as a non-drafted free agent the winter of 1984. “There were times I would be driving to Harrisburg (Pa.) to start the season, and I thought about just staying on the highway to Vermont.”

He took a much different direction when he joined the Dodgers in a trade for minor leaguer Bill Krueger after the 1988 season, even though it took some advice from Albuquerque Manager Kevin Kennedy.

“I remember one game in Las Vegas where I realized that after somebody would hit him, he would walk around the mound with his head down,” Kennedy said. “I told him, ‘If the hitter sees that, he becomes even more confident of hitting you.’ I told him, ‘You can never give the impression you are defeated.’ ”

That lesson helped him last winter in Venezuela.

With Neidlinger’s Caracas team needing only one out for the championship at its rivals’ stadium, fans showered the field with rocks and bottles. Neidlinger remained on the mound throughout the disturbance, which ended when police cleared the bleachers.

“It took me 30 minutes just to throw the last pitch,” Neidlinger said. “But I was lucky, being on the mound. Nobody could throw a bottle that far.”

He was mostly inconsistent for Albuquerque this season, going 8-5 with a 4.29 ERA. But after four replacement starters for Orel Hershiser compiled one victory in 13 starts, the Dodgers figured Neidlinger couldn’t do any worse.

If nothing else, they thought, he would not be rattled. He proved that on Aug. 17 in that game in which the Dodgers took a 7-0 lead against Montreal.

Beforehand, his pregnant wife phoned him and told him to be on a midnight flight to Albuquerque. She did not tell him that she had already gone into labor. But he knew.

“I could tell by her voice that she was getting ready to have the baby,” he said. “I took the mound thinking, ‘Get these guys out, then get the heck home.’ ”

He gave up no runs until, with two out in the fifth, he became “mentally exhausted,” and gave up five runs before leaving the game.

He heard that the Dodgers had won, and his record had improved to 2-1, on a radio in a cab bound for the airport. When he arrived in Albuquerque and discovered his wife was still in labor, he caught a couple of hours’ sleep in his car. Finally, at 2:24 p.m., daughter Alisa Elaine was born.

“What has happened to me in my career, I could not have sat down and written a book that would read any better,” said Neidlinger with a smile of a man who can’t wait to write the next chapter tonight.