BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Why So Much Offense? For Starters, It’s Pitching

As Angel Manager Buck Rodgers noted the other day, it’s difficult to tell which is livelier--the balls, bats or imagination.

Theories abound on the largest offensive onslaught in April history.

“Maybe the latest Haitian revolution left the balls stored there so long they simply dried out,” announcer-comic Bob Uecker said.

Problem with that is that the balls are now manufactured in Costa Rica, and Rawlings says they are manufactured to the same specifications as always.

Broadcaster Tim McCarver said he takes Rawlings at its word. Pitching, he said, is the culprit.

“Every rule change has been designed to protect the hitter and produce more offense,” he said. “Now you have those rule changes catching up with pitching that’s mediocre at best. I mean, middle relief is deplorable.”

Nothing new about this.

“It’s definitely come up before, but the magnitude of this year’s production is staggering,” said Steve Hirdt of the Elias News Bureau, the major leagues’ statistical house.

“At the same time, if it occurred in August it might have been overlooked. But in the first two or three weeks of April, it definitely stands out.”

Uecker agreed.

“This is the time of year when the pitchers are supposed to be ahead of the hitters,” he said. “If this is an example, maybe the pitchers should start reporting right after Christmas.”

Sixteen of the 28 teams have already scored 10 or more runs in a game. Three players--Cory Snyder, Tim Raines and Karl Rhodes--have already hit three home runs in a game. The Atlanta Braves have twice hit three consecutive homers. The Boston Red Sox scored 22 runs, the Dodgers 19.

“And it’s still April,” McCarver said. “I mean, wait until the weather warms up.”

According to Elias, there is an average of 10.4 runs per game, up 16% from last year, and 2.3 homers, compared to 1.6 in ’93. At the current pace, there will be more than 10,000 homers hit, shattering the record of 4,458 during the allegedly juiced-ball season of 1987.

It is also noteworthy that the major league earned-run average is a soaring 4.66 compared to 4.12 at this time last year, and most believe that increase reflects diluted pitching.

“The tough part is that I don’t see it getting any better,” Philadelphia Phillie General Manager Lee Thomas said. “There just isn’t any pitching out there, particularly kids who can throw hard.”

There were 233 pitchers used in 1960, the last year of the eight team leagues. There were 533 used in 1993, when each league had 14 teams.

Ten of the current 28 teams carried 11 or more pitchers into this season, hoping to equate quantity with quality while preparing for frequent calls to the bullpen. Only the Atlanta Braves have a five-man rotation that prompts heads to turn, and the dearth of middle-relief pitching has been accompanied by a significant decrease in the number of proven closers.

If pitching has been unable to keep pace with expansion, it has also wilted under changes designed to favor the offense: lowering of the mound in 1969, introduction of the designated hitter in 1973, the proliferation of artificial turf and a return to cozier ballparks with shorter dimensions and less foul territory.

Pitchers also are handicapped by the refusal of umpires to call the high strike as specified in the rules and by their own reluctance to pitch inside.

The style of pitching has also evolved from power to finesse, probably because of Little League, high school and college coaches who place more emphasis on winning than development.

“You’ve got kids throwing split-fingers and breaking pitches before their arms are ready for it, and when they have to reach back for a fastball, it’s not there,” McCarver said.

“I remember talking to (New York Met executive) Gerry Hunsicker last year and he said that only two or three of the top prospects in the country threw more than 90 (m.p.h.).”

The result is that force-fed young pitchers are trying to pitch a finesse game in the major leagues before they have the ability to handle it. That often leaves them behind in the count against beefed-up hitters who no longer care how many times they strike out.

“That’s true,” Uecker said. “You’ve got weightlifters swinging thin-handled bats as if they’re a riding crop. I’ve never seen so many bats break. If they really wanted to even it out, they’d make the hitter use what’s left.”

THE WAY IT IS

With David Wells on the disabled list, the Detroit Tigers recalled 21-year-old Jose Lima, their youngest pitcher since 1980 and a guy with a 17-36 minor league record.

Lima gave up consecutive homers to Kansas City’s Gary Gaetti and Dave Henderson in an ugly first appearance, but Manager Sparky Anderson says he will get another.

“No one knows if he can pitch yet, but in the big leagues today there are 280 pitchers,” Anderson said. “We might have a question about half of them, a third at least. He’s at least in the unknown category. Some of those others are known (to be bad).”

The Tigers, of course, are without alternatives, as they were, Anderson suggested, when they re-signed the erratic Wells to a three-year, $7.5-million contract even though he had spent August on the disabled list because of the elbow injury that has put him back on it.

Said Anderson of a staff that had to be supplemented wherever and however it could: “Hey, I didn’t see us waltzing around with any Cy Young winners.”

BECK’S VIEW

Rod Beck, the San Francisco Giant closer who has been sidelined since April 5 because of a broken bone in his left foot, was eligible to be taken off the disabled list Thursday but might not be ready, at least in management’s opinion.

X-rays on Wednesday showed little improvement, and there is a possibility that calcium has developed around the instep.

“We’re not going to rush him,” General Manager Bob Quinn said. “We’re not going to risk losing him for two or three months.”

The hard-nosed Beck said he is ready now.

“They don’t even ask me anymore,” he said. “They twist on my foot until it hurts, and then they say I can’t pitch. I can deal with it. I can pitch with it. They just can’t realize it.”

The Giants have gotten three saves from setup man Mike Jackson, but Manager Dusty Baker said, “This is the toughest stretch since I’ve been managing. I try to push the right buttons without Rod, but it’s not easy. My setup man is now my closer, and everyone else is acting as my setup man.”

HOLY COW

The Chicago Cubs are 0-8 at Wrigley Field, tying their worst home start. Worse, starting pitchers Jose Guzman and Mike Morgan have missed turns and might face the disabled list. Morgan, the former Dodger who was 10-15 last year after going 16-8 in his first season with the Cubs, is nursing shoulder, back and knee problems.

“I tried throwing last year to keep on track, and all it did was hurt my back all the more,” he said. “I’ll be moving in with the trainers the rest of this year.”

These are definitely hard times for the Cubs. General Manager Larry Himes has eliminated the free clubhouse food, saying it cost $40,000 the last two years. Players will now have to pay for the burgers and pasta being brought in from restaurants.

“Before they were being treated better than everyone else,” Himes said. “Now they’re being treated equal. My secretary pays for her lunch. I pay for mine. They should pay for theirs.”

SAY WHAT?

The Phillies apparently heard what they wanted to hear when Atlanta pitcher John Smoltz said of his Braves:

“This is a team that had to come back from 10 games back to win (the title in the National League West last year). It’s scary to think that if we put together a big margin, nobody will have a chance to catch us.”

The Phillies, who beat the Braves in the playoffs and are now a division rival in the realigned East Division, interpreted that as Smoltz saying no team could catch the Braves.

“When things are going good for you, that’s when you keep your mouths shut and play,” Philadelphia outfielder Milt Thompson said. “All they’ve done is put more pressure on themselves.

“Besides, we don’t have to catch them. We just have to have one of the best records (as a wild-card team).

“And they know we know how to play in a playoff situation.”

Said Smoltz, attempting clarification: “I never said the race was over. I never said nobody had a chance to catch us. It was taken out of context. The Phillies don’t need any motivation.”

* NO RELIEF: The Seattle Mariners’ suspect bullpen is living up (down?) to billing. The Mariners are the only big league team without a save. Bobby Ayala has blown two, Kevin King one. Manager Lou Piniella was so angered by Ayala’s failure to hold a 4-2 lead in the eighth inning of a 7-4 loss to the New York Yankees on Wednesday night that he ripped the cords from a dugout phone.

The staff opened the season with 520 saves, but 510 belonged to past-their-prime Goose Gossage and Bobby Thigpen. Management has indicated it will trade for a closer if the team is in the race in midseason, but that might be too late, assuming someone is available.

* ADD MARINERS: Third baseman Edgar Martinez, since winning the 1992 American League batting title and undergoing shoulder surgery on Sept. 12 of that year, has appeared in only 42 of 197 games. The hard-luck Martinez, plagued by a hamstring pull most of last year, was put back on the disabled list the other day, still encumbered by a bruised wrist suffered in his first at-bat of the season when hit by a pitch thrown by Dennis Martinez.

* TEWK’S THEME: Bob Tewksbury of the St. Louis Cardinals started 0-3 last season and finished with 17 victories. Now he is 4-0, but his philosophy is the same. “Everybody was hootin’ on me with that 0-3 start last year,” he said. “The only thing I said was, ‘Look at the record in October.’ And that’s all I’m saying now, ‘Look at it in October.’ ”

* AT RISK: The dizziness and chest pains that put San Francisco Giant hitting coach Bobby Bonds into an Atlanta hospital the other night were caused by a spasm in a coronary artery. He was told to quit smoking and said he did so the moment he got into the ambulance. “The doctor said I’ve got to be intelligent enough to listen to him or dumb enough to take a gamble,” Bonds said. “I’m not going to gamble.”

* SIGH YOUNG: Jack McDowell, 5-0 last April, is now 1-2 with a 5.74 earned-run average and is 3-7 with a 5.05 ERA in his last 10 decisions, including the October playoff games with Toronto. Said Chicago White Sox Manager Gene Lamont: “His control isn’t where it should be. The pitches he has been getting hurt on are definitely bad pitches.”

* JUICE FACTORY: No pitching staff is contributing more to the April offensive onslaught than that of the Minnesota Twins, who have only one pitcher, left-handed reliever Larry Casian, a starter while at Cal State Fullerton, with an ERA under 6.00. Some numbers: Opponents were hitting .348 against the Twins through Thursday and had hit 31 homers, in the Metrodome. Twelve players have hit their first home runs of the season against Minnesota pitchers and Mark McGwire has hit four. In seven games against McGwire’s Oakland Athletics, the Twins have given up 98 hits, 17 home runs and 21 doubles.

* FINAL WORD: On his role in last Sunday’s bench-clearing melee ignited when Benito Santiago of the Florida Marlins charged pitcher Kevin Rogers of the Giants, Charlie Hough, 46, said, “I ran out there at full speed, but by the time I got there the fight was over.”