BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Cardinals Bring Surprise Joy to Painful Transition

They are the National League’s answer to the American League’s Minnesota Twins, the surprise team of the first half.

The St. Louis Cardinals might be even more of a surprise than the Twins, considering the losses and changes in personnel and the lack of experience.

A team in transition after bottoming out at 70-92 last season, the Cardinals are suddenly a threat in the National League East. They come up to the All-Star break eight games over .500, five back of the division-leading Pittsburgh Pirates, and Manager Joe Torre is convinced the best is yet to come.

“We’re not doing it with mirrors,” he said. “We’re doing it with solid baseball, and I think we’ll get better. Experience alone will make us better.”

Good enough to catch the Pirates or the New York Mets?

“We have 12 games left with both the Pirates and Mets starting Aug. 1,” Torre said. “It’s important to keep (the deficit) around five games because I don’t want to be in a situation where we have to win 10 of the 12.

“Pittsburgh is capable of running away. They have the experience of last year and more power than we do, but when we’re on the field with them, we have the confidence we can beat them.”

Torre came out of the Angels’ TV booth to succeed Whitey Herzog at the Cardinal helm shortly before last season’s All-Star break.

Herzog quit in frustration, saying he could no longer motivate the Cardinals, but a larger issue might have been his loss of executive control and the corporate decision to reduce the payroll with younger players.

Torre was signed through 1993 and recently extended through ’94. His and the team’s performance have removed a measure of sheen from Herzog’s genius status, considering that once having built “the Team of the ‘80s,” an impressive accomplishment to be sure, Herzog was operating with an established cast.

Here’s what Torre faced:

--Vince Coleman and Terry Pendleton left as free agents, and Willie McGee, expected to join the defecting Coleman and Pendleton, was traded in August.

--Center fielder Ray Lankford and left fielder Bernard Gilkey, farm products in their first full major league season, were asked to replace McGee and Coleman, and an unproven Felix Jose, obtained for McGee, was asked to fill the Tom Brunansky void in right.

--Todd Zeile, one of baseball’s promising young catchers, was asked to replace Pendleton at third base, a move Torre himself made when he was a player.

--Joe Magrane was lost for the season because of a torn elbow ligament in spring training, leaving 19-game loser Jose DeLeon as the potential pitching ace.

--Ozzie Smith, in the final year of his contract, pushed the Cardinals to either pick up his 1992 option or trade him to a contender, prompting Pedro Guerrero, whose contract also expires after this season, to suggest it was time for an extension or he, too, would check the flight schedules.

“I didn’t know what to expect coming out of spring training,” Torre said. “We had won 16 (spring) games playing with a lot of aggressiveness. I figured we’d catch the ball, but the pitching and hitting were still a question. All I asked is that they prepared and did their best. We preached togetherness.

“The key was a good start. We needed that early confidence or we might have begun to believe our press clippings, which weren’t very good. I mean, everyone was predicting doom.”

Torre cited other keys:

--A defense that has made fewer errors than any major league team.

--A bullpen that has contributed to every Cardinal victory, saving 26 and winning 17, with Lee Smith 23 for 26 in save chances.

--A bench that Torre calls the best in baseball, having contributed a cumulative average of .344 and 27 runs batted in.

--A successful transition by Zeile.

--A typically distracting offense that has (1) produced more triples than home runs, (2) received 30 stolen bases from the sometimes struggling Lankford and Gilkey, (3) benefited from the .300-plus performance of Jose and (4) been sparked by the All-Star bat of glove wizard Smith, shaking off the dissatisfaction over his contract.

--A rebuilt rotation in which Cris Carpenter and Ken Hill returned from Louisville to win 15 games, and veterans Bryn Smith and Bob Tewksbury won another 13.

Said Torre, insisting that he doesn’t miss his Newport Beach condominium or a lifestyle in which the only pressure was a six-foot putt for a $5 Nassau:

“I’m having fun with this. I hadn’t managed for six years and I guess I missed it more than I thought. I talked to a couple of managers before coming back because I didn’t know what to expect, and they said it was tougher now because the game and the players had changed.

“Well, I do think the players have changed in the sense that they have more of a celebrity status and tend to get jerked around by people wanting their time, but on the field I think it’s the same game, and I feel great about the way we’ve been playing it.”

BLEEDING BREWER BLUE

The Milwaukee Brewers gave up on one former Dodger first baseman the other day and may be ready to quit on another.

Greg Brock was released, and Franklin Stubbs has been replaced in the regular lineup by Paul Molitor.

Stubbs, signed to a three-year, $6-million contract as a free agent last winter, is batting .213 with five home runs and 19 runs batted in.

Brock, displaced by Stubbs, had only 60 at-bats before the Brewers decided to eat the remainder of his $900,000 salary for 1991. He rejected Milwaukee offers to buy him out in spring training and again the other day.

“I never knew what their thinking was,” Brock said of the Brewers. “I thought they might release me in spring training. Then when I turned down the buyout this week, I thought they might keep me for the entire year. Where I go from here, I don’t know.”

Rumors are that the Atlanta Braves, with first basemen Nick Esasky and Sid Bream on the disabled list, might be interested when Brock clears waivers.

OAKLAND OPTIMISM

“The way I look at it,” said Oakland Athletic General Manager Sandy Alderson, who really has no other way to look at it, “we’re only (3 1/2 games) out and haven’t played worth a damn.

“I mean, we’re fortunate to be where we are, considering the number of injuries we’ve had and our relatively poor performance.”

The A’s parade of agony has been chronicled. Eight players were on the disabled list at one point, and the A’s have already used 19 pitchers.

The mental burden was severe.

“I think we were on the verge of a breakdown because of the uncertainty,” Alderson said. “There was nothing to hold on to. No one knew where the next (solid) pitching performance was coming from. The whole thing seemed to be in disarray, but I think that Stew’s last two outings have changed that.”

Alderson referred to Dave Stewart, who shut out the Texas Rangers in his last start after a long siege of injury and ineffectiveness. Stewart represents a stopper, renewing optimism for a team that won three consecutive AL West titles with the league’s best earned-run average.

The 1991 ERA, however, has been among the league’s worst as Stewart labored and all three of the valuable setup men--Rick Honeycutt, Gene Nelson and Todd Burns--were felled by injuries.

“You can’t win this division with the worst ERA in the league,” Alderson said, “but I think we can be right there if our pitching comes back. It’s a scramble, and I’m confident we still have a chance.”

Alderson said his confidence is based on the belief that “Stewart is now headed in the right direction, and Honeycutt and Nelson are close to their usual form.”

In addition, third baseman Carney Lansford, expected to be sidelined the entire season because of a knee injury, is due back by Aug. 1, and shortstop Walt Weiss, out with an ankle injury that threatened his season, is expected by mid-August, restoring stability to the left side of the infield and a familiar chemistry to the batting order.

Poised within striking distance, the A’s cast an ominous shadow over the West. “We obviously have the potential to play better, and I’m confident we will,” Alderson

said.

SNUBBED STARS

Here’s a combined All-Star team of players not going to Tuesday night’s game in Toronto (injured and/or players on the disabled list are not included):

First base--Wally Joyner; Second base--Delino DeShields; Shortstop--Jay Bell; Third base--Terry Pendleton; Outfield--Jose Canseco, Dave Winfield and Chili Davis; Catcher--Brian Harper; Pitchers--Chuck Finley, Mike Morgan, Bruce Hurst, Zane Smith and Bobby Thigpen.

FREEWAY SERIES?

Prospects for an October matchup between the Angels and the Dodgers have never been brighter.

The AL West looms as a wide-open scramble, with only the Kansas City Royals having been eliminated in the first half.

There are two critical questions confronting the Angels:

--Can a four-man rotation survive the second half workload now that Fernando Valenzuela is out of the picture and there is no apparent candidate for the fifth starting spot?

--Can Dave Winfield, 39, maintain his groove, or Dave Parker, 40, continue to find one--either being an offensive imperative?

The NL West looms as a two-team race between the Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds. The Dodgers might have enough starting pitching, with or without an effective Orel Hershiser, but there are two other issues.

--Can an inconsistent bullpen provide the critical relief, with Jay Howell remaining sound enough to serve as the closer?

--Can Darryl Strawberry emerge from the honeymoon to carry his team down the stretch, as he is obviously capable of doing, and might have to do if the Reds mount an anticipated charge.