Making Impressions, Good and Bad

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda will forever insist that the spikes-high slide by Andres Galarraga into second baseman Jody Reed was the cheap-shot catalyst of Tuesday night’s war with the Colorado Rockies.

Galarraga, knocked down by a pitch from Ramon Martinez moments before, and then hit in the neck by Martinez’s pick-off throw to first base--”Of course, we practice that in spring training,” a sarcastic Eric Karros said--acknowledged that he wanted to leave a calling card with Reed, but that his slide was hard and clean.

It has been a season of hot shots for the 32-year-old Galarraga, a season of redemption for the first baseman known as “Cat” because of his agility in the field.

Rebounding from the broken wrist that marred his first and last season with the St. Louis Cardinals, Galarraga started a weekend series against the San Diego Padres with a major league-high .436 batting average. He had 50 runs batted in, fourth best in the National League, and was among the league leaders in slugging and on-base percentages.

“I feel very good,” Galarraga said long after the heat of Tuesday night had dissipated. “A lot of people thought my career was over, but I’ve proved that it isn’t.”

Galarraga smiled. He knows, as John Olerud knows, that hitting .400 is an improbability, even though no one has hit .400 this late in a season since Rod Carew was at .402 on July 14, 1983.

Carew ultimately finished at .339. Galarraga is a .267 career hitter who doesn’t have the benefit of hitting the woeful Rockies’ pitching and has to earn everything he gets because, like Olerud, he lacks speed.

“I feel very comfortable at the plate and capable of doing something every time I’m up, but I’m only trying to hit the ball hard and do the things I need to do,” Galarraga said. “I don’t want to put any pressure on myself. I’m not thinking about .400.”

A batting title, though, is different. Galarraga mentioned 1987 and ‘88, when he mounted title challenges with the Montreal Expos before finishing at .305 and .302.

Said Don Baylor, the Rockies’ manager: “Rico Carty (who hit .366 with the Atlanta Braves in 1970) and Joe Torre (.363 with St. Louis in 1971) won batting titles and they couldn’t run at all.”

Galarraga is making his run after hitting .219 with the Expos in 1991, when he appeared in only 107 games because of a knee injury. He hit .243 last year and played in only 95 games after being traded to the Cardinals for Ken Hill and breaking his wrist during the second game of the season when hit by a pitch.

He struggled through mid-summer before batting .301 in his final 45 games. However, only a few of those were in September.

“I was finally 100%, but the Cardinals wouldn’t play me because they didn’t want to be forced into having to offer me a new contract,” Galarraga said. “I knew someone would give me a chance, but it was hard to understand.”

Said Baylor: “The Cardinals wrote him off, and a lot of other people did, too. He’s come from the bottom of the barrel.”

Baylor was the Cardinals’ hitting coach in ’92 and believed in that .301 streak. He urged the Rockies’ general manager, Bob Gebhard, to sign Galarraga as a free agent.

The bargain price--a $600,000 base salary with $500,000 in incentives--fit the payroll of an expansion team that wasn’t going to be turned around by one or two high-priced free agents.

In addition, Gebhard, then a minor league instructor with the Expos, has known Galarraga since he was “a skinny 16-year-old kid from Venezuela,” and was confident Galarraga would feel at home because of that familiarity and his comparable familiarity and confidence in Baylor.

Then, too, there was Mile High Stadium, with spacious gaps in right and a cozy left field.

“I told his agent that if Andre couldn’t hit here, people might be right, that his career might be over,” Gebhard said.

Galarraga signed the day before the expansion draft. He was hitless in his first 12 spring at-bats, but hasn’t stopped since. Not even the hamstring tear that sidelined him for 17 days in May was a deterrent. As of Friday, he had hit .500 in the 15 games since returning.

“Cat isn’t a Rod Carew or George Brett,” Baylor said. “Guys like that can get out of bed on Christmas Day and hit line drives. A big guy takes time, and I was worried about the injury, but the way he’s hit has convinced me he understands what he needs to do.

“I mean, with Cat it comes down to basics. He has to use the whole field. He has to hit to right and wait for an inside pitch before he tries to pull.

“He’s such a nice guy, he tends to listen to anyone and everyone. He went through five or six hitting instructors in Montreal and they all had their own style. Cat’ll hit 15 to 20 homers, but they wanted 30 and 35.

“I think he’s more productive cutting down on strikeouts (he had 480 in the three seasons he hit 20 or more homers in Montreal) and just trying to hit the ball hard where it’s pitched.

“We opened his stance a little after finding out he wears contacts and has a dominant right eye, and I think he gets a better look at the pitch now.”

Galarraga is also getting a pitch of a different kind. The Rockies, triggered by his productivity and popularity in a city with a 23% Hispanic population, have begun talks regarding a multiyear contract. If Galarraga doesn’t sign before Aug. 31, it’s likely he will be traded to a contender for a package of prospects.

“He’s the type player an expansion team can use to get some quality young players in return, but our objective is to try and sign him,” Gebhard said.

Either way, the Cat is up and out of the barrel and will soon become a fat Cat.

MEANWHILE . . .

Galarraga has stolen some of his .400 thunder, but Olerud has been so consistent that Toronto Blue Jay teammate Devon White said: “When he makes an out, we feel like going out and shaking the pitcher’s hand.”

ROLE PLAYERS

Dusty Baker’s restructuring of San Francisco’s bullpen has been a major factor in the Giants’ success.

Five pitchers had saves under former manager Roger Craig last season. Rod Beck was the full-time closer in the second half and had a club-high 17 saves in his first full season.

With Mike Jackson as the regular set-up man, Beck has been the closer from the start under Baker and was 20 for 22 in save chances through Thursday, converting his last 13 in a row. He had struck out 43 and walked only five--”I’m not afraid to throw the ball over the plate”--in the 33 1/3 innings of his 32 appearances.

“Last year, the phone would ring down in the bullpen and we’d have five or six guys standing up, getting loose and asking, ‘Who’s it for?’ ” Beck said.

“You just never knew when or how you were going to be used or how many innings you were going to go. This year, everybody has a role and Dusty has stayed with it religiously.”

TOUCHING A NERVE

Manager Davey Johnson of the Cincinnati Reds stirred a bit of a tempest the other day when he said that he didn’t understand why he’d had to wait so long to get another managerial job while Baker, Don Baylor and Tony Perez, none of whom had managerial experience, were hired ahead of him.

Baker, in Cincinnati at the time, wondered if there weren’t racial overtones to Johnson’s comments and asked him directly why he had singled out three minorities and not Phil Garner or Art Howe, who had also been hired without managerial experience.

“It caught me by surprise, coming from him, but Al Campanis caught me by surprise, too,” Baker said. “It’s just a very sensitive thing in America now, especially here in Cincinnati (where the Reds are owned by Marge Schott, who is currently on suspension for having used racial and ethnic slurs).”

Johnson said he assured Baker there was nothing of a racial nature intended, that he was happy when both Baker and Baylor got their jobs because they are class acts, and the only thing he was trying to emphasize is that the game has changed and it’s important to have managerial experience. He did seem to jab Baylor, however, adding:

“Dusty has done a great job. He has the team playing up to its potential. Don Baylor doesn’t have as good a team and he doesn’t have the experience and patience. Some guys have less patience than is needed to manage in the big leagues.”

DENVER OMELET

The owners didn’t completely lay an egg during their latest round of meetings, their 10th in 10 months.

Indecision did contribute to their inability to agree on a format for the new playoff round, but so did the influence of Don Fehr and his players’ union.

The owners need the union’s approval on the new tier of playoff games, and they have been under consistent fire from Fehr for claiming they want a partnership with the players while failing to include the union in the decisions. The union will now be included in the discussions pertaining to the playoff format.

Other scraps:

--At the urging of Richard Ravitch, president of their Player Relations Committee, the owners gave unanimous support to a resolution stating they are committed to resolving differences between the big and small markets so that they can reach an agreement on expanded revenue sharing among the clubs, a necessary prelude to labor talks with the union on a salary-cap system.

Nice, but no cigar. All the owners are really saying is that they’re willing to talk about more revenue sharing. Ravitch faces a monumental task, getting many of the big-market clubs, including both of the New York teams, Toronto and the Boston Red Sox, to agree to a new formula.

Said one owner: “We have to guard against creating a dole in which the small-market clubs are simply relying on the big-market checks and not doing everything they can to generate support. People tend to lose pride when it becomes easier for them to survive.”

--Although the league presidents, Bobby Brown of the American and Bill White of the National, insist that there has not been an increase in fights--”It’s the TV replays that make it seem like it,” said White--and that there is no blanket rule or large enough fine that will keep players on the bench, the issue will probably go to a committee soon.

“It’s happening too often,” said Bud Selig, owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and chairman of the executive council. “It has to be addressed. There’s need for refinement in the system. Every so often there’s going to be a fight. That can’t be avoided. But we’re seeing too much ugliness.”

NAMES AND NUMBERS

PIAZZA’S START: Here’s one way to measure the sensational debut of Dodger catcher Mike Piazza: Before Saturday, he had a batting average of .344 with 12 home runs and 43 runs batted in.

The three rookies that the Pittsburgh Pirates are counting on so heavily--first baseman Kevin Young, second baseman Carlos Garcia and left fielder Al Martin--had combined for only 10 homers, 50 RBIs and a cumulative average of .236.

* CLOCKWORK: The St. Louis Cardinals have reduced the average time of their games by 30 minutes to 2 hours 34 minutes. The key factor: Their pitchers have issued only 147 walks, fewest in the majors. Three of the starters have walked fewer than 10. Bob Tewksbury leads the majors in fewest walks per nine innings with six in 83 2/3 innings; Rene Arocha has walked six in 65, and Rheal Cormier has walked nine in 69.

* COUSINS: Cecil Fielder beat up on the Cleveland Indians again this week and now has 23 homers and 55 RBIs against the Indians in his career. The Detroit Tiger first baseman has homered off 18 Cleveland pitchers, including two named Valdez--Sergio and Efrian.

“Every good hitter seems to have one team he does more against,” Manager Sparky Anderson said. “It’s like what I used to do against the Long Beach post (in American Legion play).”

* GETTING AROUND: When Randy Myers of the Chicago Cubs notched his 20th save Tuesday, he joined Goose Gossage as the only relievers to have recorded 20 or more with four teams since the save became an official statistic in 1969. Myers had previously done it with the New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds and San Diego Padres.

* ADD CUBS: With Mike Morgan, Mike Harkey and Greg Hibbard on the disabled list, the Cubs are trying to survive with a rotation that includes Frank Castillo, Shawn Boskie, Jose Bautista and Turk Wendell, who have combined for three major league victories this year.

* ECONOMICAL: Tom Glavine got 13 first-pitch outs and needed only 79 pitches Tuesday as the Atlanta Braves defeated the New York Mets, 2-1. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Brave pitching coach Leo Mazzone said of Glavine’s tidy performance.

* TAKE A NUMBER: Dennis Martinez may be 38 and a modest 7-5 this year, but a long line of clubs, including the Toronto Blue Jays, Kansas City Royals, Texas Rangers, San Francisco Giants and New York Yankees, are pounding on the Montreal Expos’ door, trying to trade for Martinez, even though he becomes a free agent at the end of the season and hopes to end his career in Miami with the hometown Florida Marlins.