RETURN OF THE : Wallach Wallop : Third Baseman Is on a Tear Since Becoming Cleanup Hitter for the Dodgers

The uppercut is gone now. Tim Wallach’s swing is straighter, smoother and more explosive.

He is no longer pulling the ball into somebody’s glove; instead, he crushes it, usually to left-center field, sometimes to the opposite field. He has hit six homers and driven in 19 runs, tying him for third in the league. He is batting .294.

Since he began batting in the cleanup spot April 14, the Dodgers have broken out of their offensive slump. In that role, Wallach is batting .385 with five home runs and 14 runs batted in. During that time, Mike Piazza, hitting third, has batted .400, in part because teams no longer pitch around him to get to Wallach, who is batting .381 with four home runs and nine RBIs with runners in scoring position.

There were high expectations for Wallach when he came to the Dodgers from the Montreal Expos before last season. The Dodgers needed him to stabilize what was then the worst defense in the National League, and he did. They wanted him to drive in 80 runs and hit about 16 homers, but a three-week stint on the disabled list slowed him.

They asked him to bring some leadership, on and off the field, and he accomplished that merely by showing up.

The Dodgers committed to Wallach for two seasons--his contract is up this year--and were hoping by now there would be some youngster with power they could promote to the third base job, but there is no one ready.

Besides, Wallach has other plans. At 36, he has heard it said that he is past his prime, but he never believed it. Offensively, he has struggled since 1991, when he batted .225. But he always believed he could regain his stroke.

“I was always a No. 1 project in Montreal . . . somebody was always trying to get me to hit down on the ball,” said Wallach, who is in his 14th major league season. “I was swinging down so much that I was trying to hit the ball all over the field, and my best power is left-center and right-center, and I was pulling the ball, and that’s just not me.

“It eroded from there. I had always had confidence that my physical skills were not gone, but I struggled. People were trying to help, and I appreciate that, but I won’t place the blame on them--they can’t go out there and hit the ball for me. I should know myself by now and I do, but I got away from being myself at the plate.”

The erosion went from physical to mental, and Wallach couldn’t stop it.

“Slumps in baseball for everybody become mental, then if you start to change your physical approach, it prolongs it,” said Angel Manager Buck Rodgers, who managed Wallach for six seasons in Montreal.

“Whenever Tim went into a slump, it’s because he didn’t go to the opposite field, because he tried to pull the ball too much. As long as he stayed to right field, he was fine.”

As confident as he is, Wallach still bristled when Rodgers made some negative comments about him recently, saying that Wallach’s best season, 1987, was because of a juiced baseball. Rodgers later explained that he was misunderstood.

“I said that the last time the ball was supposed to be juiced was in 1987, and Tim Wallach had had a hell of a year, but not because the ball was juiced,” Rodgers said. “What I said is that anybody that had a good year, had a better year. But you don’t have 50 RBIs with two out, like Tim did, because of a juiced ball. I have tried to call Tim and left a message, because I want him to know I didn’t say that.

“He was one of my all-time favorites. This was a guy who played three weeks with a broken foot to finish out a season. There’s a term we have in baseball, and that’s gamer. To call someone a gamer is the highest compliment, and Wallach is a gamer.”

Gamer that he is, not hitting his weight was tearing at his pride. So during the winter, Wallach worked intensely at Dodger Stadium with Reggie Smith, the team’s hitting instructor. They poured over videotapes of Wallach’s good years, such as 1990, when he batted .296 with 21 home runs and 98 RBIs, and 1987, when he batted .298 with 26 homers and 123 RBIs.

“I had some physical flaws in my swing and when you have that and you struggle, then it gets to you mentally,” Wallach said. “I think the struggles began after ’91 when I tried to change things rather than going along with what I have done and working on the things I have done well instead of trying to get better at the things I didn’t do well. And that’s what Reggie said. He told me to work on the positives and forget about the things I don’t do well.”

Wallach, after beginning the season hitless in 13 at-bats, is batting .364 in his last 15 games. Sunday night against Montreal, he hit two shots into the left-center field seats--the first time he has hit two in a game since 1990. Defensively, he is quicker after working out all winter, and has made only one error this season.

“When Eli struggles, he’s still the same,” said Larry Walker, former Montreal teammate. “In fact, he’s actually funnier when he’s struggling. He’s the kind of guy who makes you want to come to the ballpark.

“Fans can think he has a bad attitude because of the way he loafs around on the field, but he is a team player. He is not fast, kind of a slow, droopy guy, but that’s just Tim. The fans in Montreal loved him, he stuck it out up there when everybody else was leaving.”

It didn’t take long for Wallach to become a leader in the Dodger clubhouse. He uses a sarcastic approach, always ragging on the other players.

“He took an active leadership role by just being himself, and himself is a very personal person that you can’t help but like,” reliever Roger McDowell said. “If there is some kind of conflict you have with Tim Wallach, then you don’t get along with anybody.

“Tim has had to work for everything he has achieved, and people see that and appreciate it, not only because of the years he has had but the type of years, the (five) gold gloves, and he has played with people you read about, and we will read about him some day.”

Wallach, who played at Cal State Fullerton and still lives in Orange County, would like to end his career with the Dodgers, but he is not ready to quit. What is driving him this season is not a new contract--he is making $3.3 million this season--but a desire to play in a World Series.

“If for some reason I wasn’t to play after this season, and we didn’t win, there will always be a void, because the only thing I have missing from my career is a world championship. If the Dodgers don’t re-sign me, maybe I would go somewhere else, but it would depend on what team and if they had a chance to win.

“I feel like physically and mentally I can still play. I have done the things I wanted to do in the game. I have had good years . . . I have struggled, but I can live with that. I am happy with the years that I have had and how I have worked at it. I feel good about that.

“Now, I just want to get that ring.”