BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Hentgen Redeems Himself

He was frustrated, disappointed and unable to sleep after that abbreviated performance in Game 3 of the American League playoffs.

He carried it for 11 days, waiting for a chance at redemption.

It came Tuesday night in Game 3 of the World Series, and neither the Philadelphia Phillies nor a 72-minute rain delay of the start spoiled Pat Hentgen’s goal.

“I won 19 games during the regular season, but let the team down in the playoffs,” the 24-year-old right-hander said.

“I wanted to prove I could pitch as well in the postseason as I did in the regular season. I wanted redemption.”

He got it with six strong innings, stifling the Phillies and a crowd known to devour visiting pitchers (see Burt Hooton, Game 3, 1978 playoffs).

Hentgen provided the 62,689 zealots with little ammunition, re-establishing his reputation as a king of the road by giving his Toronto Blue Jays the chance to build an early lead en route to a 10-3 victory.

The Phillies got only one run and five hits during Hentgen’s 99-pitch stint. He struck out six and walked two. Those three-plus innings against the Chicago White Sox in the playoffs must have come in another life.

“I approached that start all wrong,” Hentgen said of the 6-1 defeat in which he gave up all six runs in the third inning.

“I knew we had a 2-0 lead (in the series). I knew the pressure was on (Chicago starter) Wilson Alvarez and not on me, but instead of grabbing the bull by the horns, I watched Alvarez do it.

“I’m not the type of pitcher who can consistently throw the ball by big-league hitters. I need to go out and use all my pitches, but I let that inning balloon on me. I tried to throw through it instead of pitch through it. I tried to throw harder and harder.”

And Tuesday night?

“I needed to pick myself up and I think I did,” he said. “I think I pitched back to my first-half form.”

An All-Star in his first full season, Hentgen won seven consecutive decisions and was 11-4 at the break.

“I was definitely in a sweet spot in that first half,” he said. “I seemed to have more aggressiveness, confidence, intensity. I tried to pretend this was the first half tonight.”

After warming up twice because of the rain delay, Hentgen watched the Blue Jays score three runs in the first, but then found himself with runners at second and third with one out in the home half, Dave Hollins and Darren Daulton waiting menacingly. Hentgen struck out both on high fastballs.

“I think the five extra days of rest really helped,” Hentgen said. “I had been struggling with my velocity, but I had pretty good zip tonight, and I was pretty relaxed after we got those three runs in the first.”

Maybe that is why Hentgen is 13-3 on the road this year.

“I think that’s part coincidence, part getting the chance to sit in the dugout and take a breather after I warm up and part the fact that with this lineup I often have a lead before I even make a pitch, like I did tonight,” he said.

Hentgen made two starts and 26 relief appearances with the Blue Jays last year, going 5-2, but the spring of ’93 held slim hopes. Jack Morris, Dave Stewart, Juan Guzman and Todd Stottlemyre were locked in as the Toronto starters. Hentgen, who still had control problems with his curve and changeup, appeared to be the odd man out, vice president Al LaMacchia said.

“We thought we might deal him or keep him as the long man in the bullpen,” LaMacchia said. “But he pitched five strong innings against the Reds late in spring training and it was when we came back from that game that we found out Stewart would be out four to six weeks with his arm injury. Timing is everything.”

It was for Hentgen, who took over Stewart’s starting role and made the most of it, thinking when he went to spring training that he hoped to come out as the fifth starter and go .500.

He was 19-9 instead, and now he has the redemption of a World Series victory and the possibility he will pitch Game 7, if necessary.

“I’d like to think it won’t be, that we’ll have it wrapped up before we go home,” he said, “but I’ll be ready to do my job if it’s needed.”