Harris Sees No Relief in Starting

Greg Harris has acknowledged the pats on the back and listened to the attaboys. It has been like that for him all spring.

“Everyone wants to congratulate me,” he said, “because I’m going into the starting rotation.”

He has almost given up his protestations.

Almost.

“I don’t consider it to be a promotion,” he said. “I took a lot of pride in relief pitching. I enjoyed it. All this does is pose a new challenge.”

Harris got his promotion in 1988, when the Padres called him up from Las Vegas. Since then, he has been a major league pitcher. Period. With the exceptions of one start in 1988 and eight in 1989, he has been assigned to the bullpen. Assigned, not exiled.

In essence, what has happened to him is that he has been transferred to another division of the same company. He has gone from relief pitching for the San Diego Padres Baseball Club to starting pitching for the San Diego Padres Baseball Club. It would be appropriate to extend him good wishes, but congratulations do not seem to be in order.

Indeed, best wishes might be appropriate, because this man represents a significant piece in the puzzle that is 1991. He is the fourth starter on a staff that seems without a fifth. He must make this transition or Manager Greg Riddoch will need a bodyguard to keep him off the Coronado Bridge.

Fortunately for Harris, who pitched five perfect innings in a 4-1 victory over Oakland Friday night, he has had considerable background as a starting pitcher. It is not like he is going from a loading dock to an executive suite, or vice versa. In fact, in four years in the minor leagues, he started all but one game.

What’s amazing, considering his background before he signed with the Padre organization, is that he is doing any pitching at all in the major leagues. He is from Siler City, N.C., where he loved what anyone living 55 miles from Raleigh and 50 miles from Chapel Hill would love.

Basketball, naturally.

When the real season was over, baseball was the next thing to do. He was a shortstop.

What happened to him is what seems to happen to a lot of youngsters. A scout came to see a buddy pitch and the shortstop got three hits. The scout was impressed. He wanted to sign him.

The scout was from Elon College, which previously sent Jack McKeon and umpire Joe West to the major leagues. Obviously, this was a place for a kid to be if he wanted to play in the major leagues. It’s a little bit like an actress hoping to be discovered in Nome.

“They gave me an $800 scholarship to play shortstop part time,” Harris said, “and I was thankful for that. Dave Osteen, Claude’s son, was shortstop and pitcher. I was supposed to play shortstop the day he pitched and the day after. I’d play twice a week.”

It didn’t work out that way. A walk-on beat him out of the backup shortstop job.

“They said, ‘Well, we’ve got some money invested in you so we’ll stick you out on the mound,’ ” Harris said.

There would be no waste in Elon. Undoubtedly, they dutifully recycle cans and bottles and newspapers as surely as they recycled Greg Harris and, unwittingly, started him down the path to the major leagues.

“That’s fate for you,” Harris mused.

Not one to gamble with the fickleness of fate, Harris made sure he got his degree in business finance. He put that to use this last off-season in . . . banking.

“No,” he laughed, “not really banking. I was an intern for a bank.”

Ah, but what better time to say that the Padres are certainly banking on him?

For good reason.

Harris’ earned-run average for two full seasons and a month of a third is 2.40. If he pitches anywhere near that effectively given the opportunities a starter gets, it would translate into 17 or 18 victories. Only one Padre starting pitcher, Randy Jones at 2.24 in 1975, has had a lower ERA.

So how about this transition?

“The difference,” he said, “is frame of mind. I was pitching relief, relief, relief and I got into a relief pitcher’s frame of mind, even though I had been a starter all my life. I have to make this transition back on my own. A relief pitcher needs a quality pitch right now. A lot of times you almost need a strikeout. A starter can plot things out and use more of his pitches.”

The starter, for example, never makes his first pitch with the bases loaded and two out in the ninth and 30,000 fans screaming at the top of their lungs. The starter sets the pace and the tone for what comes later.

Maybe being a starter will be a promotion in the sense that it might increase his profile. He has had the unusual distinction of being The Other Greg Harris, the original being a former Padre now with the Boston Red Sox. Some of his fan mail, he said, is intended for Greg A. Harris rather than Greg W. Harris.

He is no mystery among other major league teams, however, because he might well be the most coveted Padre in trade talks.

“The other team’s interest,” he said, “shows that I have a little bit of value and that’s the first key to being established. The second key is longevity. That’s still to be seen, but, at this point, I’m where I want to be.”

And, of course, he is right where the Padres want him to be, which is where they so desperately need him. He has gone from bailing out starting pitchers to bailing out the starting pitching.