BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Reds Are Finding Safer Haven in the NL Central

Marge Schott, owner of the Cincinnati Reds, no longer thumbs her nose at city ordinances by smoking openly in Riverfront Stadium.

She has let her team do the smoking.

The Reds have opened a comfortable early lead over the Houston Astros, St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League Central.

“If we keep playing the way we’re playing into the next month, we’ll have no problem (winning the division title),” outfielder Kevin Mitchell said recently in San Diego.

Said General Manager Jim Bowden: “It was very important to get off to a good start after the nightmare we went through last year.”

The Reds were racked by injuries in 1993, ultimately employing 53 players, and distracted by Schott’s suspension for ethnic and racial slurs and the firing of popular manager Tony Perez in May.

They finished 73-89, 31 games behind the Atlanta Braves in the NL West.

“We were out of the race by June,” Bowden said. “It was a very emotional year, and all of us--from the front office to the field staff to the players--were determined to put it behind us.”

The Reds’ strong start is one of baseball’s best. Bowden didn’t make wholesale changes, but several players returned from injuries, some fringe deals are returning big dividends and the Reds are executing well under the experienced leadership of Davey Johnson.

They are first in the league in runs and team batting, second in earned-run average and among the fielding leaders.

Does Bowden--baseball’s youngest general manager at 32--feel redeemed for the heat he took over the early firing of Perez last year?

“I don’t look at it that way,” he said. “I felt we had a nucleus good enough to win, but it needed the leadership of a proven manager. Davey won 90 or more games five times with the Mets. He won a world championship.

“Maybe I got spoiled starting my career in the Pittsburgh organization and watching the impact Jim Leyland made. I know we pulled the trigger quickly on Tony, but we told him initially that we didn’t have time to develop a manager. We even asked him what he thought we should do if the team didn’t respond and he said, ‘You have to fire me.’

“We had that good nucleus, and I felt we needed an intelligent and experienced manager to take us to the next level. It was a difficult and precarious situation for Davey, given Tony’s popularity and the injuries we encountered last year, but he’s done a tremendous job starting fresh. The team came out of spring training well prepared.”

It has not been easy, however. There has been another siege of serious injuries. Closer Rob Dibble, catcher Joe Oliver and pitcher Steve Foster were sidelined indefinitely, even before Tom Browning, off to his best start at 3-1, suffered a broken arm while delivering a pitch in San Diego on Monday night. That’s a cumulative $8 million, said Bowden, guardian of the budget-conscious Schott’s payroll.

In addition, shortstop Barry Larkin has had trouble lifting his average above .215, Jose Rijo had been struggling before going seven shutout innings against the Padres on Tuesday night, and Tony Fernandez, signed as a free agent to play third base for a bargain $500,000, has done the job, but in a clearly sour way--unhappy he isn’t playing shortstop and isn’t being paid more, even though he had no alternatives when the Reds made their offer.

After a game against Houston last weekend, the grumbling Fernandez, his teammates disenchanted, threw a chair into a clubhouse hamper, packed his equipment bag, wished Larkin good luck and left as if he wasn’t returning. He was back the next day as if nothing had happened.

Johnson shook his head the other day, said he wasn’t concerned and wouldn’t become concerned as long as Fernandez’s attitude didn’t affect the team’s performance.

“He’s been in a disagreeable mood all year,” the manager said. “If you gave him a $5 bill, he’d ask for five ones instead. It might be time for him to be a little more grateful.”

Working within narrow budget parameters while receiving limited help from his farm system, Bowden has had to mix and match.

Larkin and center fielder Reggie Sanders are the only regulars developed by the Reds. Starting pitchers Browning and Tim Pugh came out of the Cincinnati system, as did John Roper, who was 6-0 at Indianapolis and is expected to face the Dodgers on Saturday in his first 1994 start as Browning’s replacement. The bullpen was almost entirely imported.

“With revenues decreasing as much as they are, the only way to keep the payroll down is to get good young blood, and the only way to do that if your farm system isn’t producing is with trades,” Bowden said, referring to his largely unheralded but significant off-season acquisitions of second baseman Bret Boone, starter Erik Hanson and relievers Hector Carrasco, Chuck McElroy and Johnny Ruffin.

Johnson’s bullpen committee of Carrasco, McElroy, Ruffin and the rejuvenated Jeff Brantley has been the league’s best, compensating for the loss of Dibble, and a key to the Reds’ success. Mitchell, recovered from the broken foot and blown rotator cuff that ended his 1993 season prematurely and motivated by the last year of his contract, has provided power many thought had been lost in the cafeteria line. And John Smiley, 3-9 as a free-agent disappointment last year, is 4-2 after elbow surgery, a key to the rotation that must now weather the loss of Browning.

Time will tell about that, but Bowden says the Reds have one other thing going for them.

“The biggest acquisition we made was moving to the Central Division and out of any division in which Atlanta plays,” he said. “Ninety or 92 wins might be good enough in our division, but a hundred might not be enough in Atlanta’s division.”

MORE MITCH

Despite the Reds’ promising start, Mitchell is looking to return to the Padres or San Francisco Giants as a free agent next season. “Those are the two teams I’m thinking about,” he said. “The Padres need a proven cleanup hitter. I think I can come back and help them.”

PADRE SALE

The word among major league owners is that they expect the Padres to be sold within two months. Tom Werner, the Padres’ managing partner, has acknowledged that he is negotiating but added that the club would not be moved. The asking price is believed to be $85 million, which lends a curious aspect to Werner’s constant laments about the sad state of baseball economics.

Werner and his group paid $65 million for the Padres in 1990. Werner got the expansion money, along with the cash flow and tax depreciation benefits while gutting the team and its payroll, now a major league-low $13.3 million.

So for taking the Padres from contender to major league pretender and alienating the city, the financial benefits he has already enjoyed probably will be enhanced by a $20-million profit on the sale.

GIANT WOES

With Will Clark gone, Robby Thompson on the disabled list because of a partial tear in his rotator cuff and Barry Bonds wincing on every swing after being hit on the elbow by a fastball from Eric Hillman, the wheels seem to be coming off the San Francisco offense.

Bonds insists he is in the lineup to stay, but he is also talking about postseason surgery for bone chips that were there even before Hillman further inflamed the elbow. It’s no guarantee he can wait until October, acknowledging he can’t extend on pitches he would normally drive.

Thompson suffered his injury diving for a ground ball April 12. It’s a major factor in his .202 average. He’s on the 15-day disabled list, but a rotator tear seldom mends that quickly.

“This isn’t just a physical blow, it’s a mental blow,” Manager Dusty Baker said of Thompson’s loss. “Baseball’s about more than just hitting. Robby calls the plays. He calls time out so the pitcher can take a break. There are a lot of things he does that don’t show up in the box score.”

PHILLIES FADE

Bidding to go from last to first to last in the NL East, Philadelphia took a 2-15 road record into a 13-game trip that began Friday. Curt Schilling, the alleged ace, is 0-6. Jeff Juden, the alleged replacement for Terry Mulholland, is 1-4. John Kruk has returned to the disabled list because of knee surgery, deriding the Veterans Stadium AstroTurf in the process--”It’s like running on cement.”

A miserable start became worse Tuesday night when the Phillies blew an 8-1 ninth-inning lead and lost to the Braves in 15 innings, 9-8. “That’s probably the toughest game I’ve ever managed,” Jim Fregosi said. “Tougher even than the 15-14 loss in the World Series. I mean, I thought I had seen it all, but I guess I haven’t.”

Club President Bill Giles might soon have seen enough and order General Manager Lee Thomas, who has already questioned his players’ priorities, to dismantle a team that has nine potential free agents. Said Giles: “We called last year’s highlight film ‘Whatever It Takes’ because we did whatever it took to win. This year the title still works because whatever it takes to lose a game, we do.”