DODGERS : Davis Tries to Get Back in the Swing of Things

Eric Davis sat in front of his locker in the Dodgertown clubhouse Sunday and tried to describe his winter. He had just completed his first workout of the spring, hitting live pitching for the first time since September.

He faced Ramon Martinez, who was pitching for the first time since August. While Martinez sat out the last month of the season with tennis elbow, Davis missed it because he had surgery on his hand, wrist and shoulder.

Using an adjusted swing, which is actually his old swing, Davis hit Martinez hard at times. Martinez, laughing, even brushed him back once after Davis hit a couple of line drives.

“His changeup was nasty,” Davis said.

Davis is pain-free, bigger and stronger now, having spent the winter trying to gain weight, raise his body-fat percentage and bulk up his upper body by weight training, the first time he has lifted weights. He gained 12 pounds and weighs about 194. He increased his body fat from about 4% to 7%.

“I had nothing to cushion a lot of my falls,” Davis said. “It went straight to bone, straight to muscle.”

He said he spent time in the off- season thinking about how he would change his style of play. No more running into walls or diving for balls.

“The mind tells you what to do. My mind was telling me to go for it, but now my mind is telling me to back off,” Davis said.

He watched videotapes of his swing and changed it back to the way it was two years ago, before he inserted a drop-down pumping motion that cut down his bat speed as well as his batting average and power.

“I did that to compensate after my kidney injury in the ’90 World Series,” he said. “Then it became a habit. It’s hard to break bad habits.”

He said the thought of the miserable 1992 season has driven him harder. Last season Davis played in a career-low 76 games, hitting .228 with five home runs. In December, he took a huge pay cut to re-sign with the Dodgers for $1 million, with another $1 million in possible incentives.

Martinez said that he felt great after his first pitching outing. He said the tenderness and pain in his elbow is gone and that his delivery is slower and more compact, much the way it was two seasons ago.

Martinez credits working out hard over the winter, something he had always done until last winter, when he started working out late. He believes that is the reason he struggled last season--he was 8-11 with a 4.00 earned-run average--and was prone to injury.