PRO BASEBALL / STEVE HENSON : Suppan Against the Wall

He’s still a kid, the youngest pitcher in the major leagues, and a Green Monster looms large over his shoulder.

Jeff Suppan, 20, must come to terms with this Monster, the legendary left-field wall at Fenway Park in Boston.

Suppan was thrust into the Red Sox starting rotation last week, into a pennant race and onto an unforgiving field. Two years ago he was pitching for Crespi High. Saturday he faced Kirby Puckett.

“I’m keeping it simple, pitching the best I can each start, trying to keep the team in the ballgame,” Suppan said.

Despite allowing a home run to the first batter he faced, Suppan kept the Red Sox close in his first start Monday, allowing three runs in 5 2/3 innings of a 4-3 loss to the Kansas City Royals.

Suppan altered his pitching pattern because of the Green Monster.

“I didn’t establish the inside half the way I usually do,” he said. “When I don’t, batters get comfortable and lean over right into the zone.”

Suppan’s rapid rise through the Red Sox farm system can be attributed to his ability to analyze and adapt. He is remarkably mature and it shows in his numbers.

At double-A Trenton this season--where he was the youngest player on the team--Suppan was 6-2 with an earned-run average of 2.36. Last year at Sarasota in the Class-A Florida State League, he was 13-7 with a 3.26 ERA and struck out 173 in 174 innings.

Adjusting to the majors not been difficult so far, but Suppan said he is looking over his shoulder at more than the Green Monster. Practical jokes played on unsuspecting rookies are a tradition and Suppan doesn’t expect to exempt.

“I’m preparing myself for that,” he said. “I assume it’s coming. I hope they don’t go too far.”

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Unselfish and aggressive, that’s been the good word on Steve Sisco since he quarterbacked Thousand Oaks High to a Southern Section football championship in 1987.

That’s what led to an injury that ended his 1995 season.

The second baseman for the Wichita Wranglers, the Kansas City Royals’ double-A affiliate, was asked to play right field June 16, although he never played there in his career. Sisco obliged.

The second batter of the game hit a ball over the right-field wall, but Sisco, his aggressiveness untempered despite his unfamiliarity with the position, ran full speed into the wall and broke his left leg just above the ankle.

The injury put a premature end to a season in which he was batting .306 and made only one error. Sisco’s cast was removed Thursday but he will undergo rehabilitation for a month.

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Greg Zaun is catching every day for the Baltimore Orioles since Chris Hoiles went on the 15-day disabled list earlier this week with a pulled left hamstring. However, Zaun, a 26-year-old from St. Francis High, is batting only .184 with one home run in 37 at-bats since being promoted from triple-A Rochester in June. Hoiles is batting .209 but has 10 home runs. . . . Left-hander Mike Magnante, 30, has a 3.27 earned-run average in four relief appearances since being promoted to the Royals on July 4 after posting a 5-1 record and 2.84 ERA in 15 games with triple-A Omaha. Magnante, who lives in Burbank and helped coach the Burroughs High team during the strike, has spent most of the past four seasons with the Royals, including all of last season when he was 2-3 with a 4.60 ERA. . . . A pair of left-handed pitchers who played on the Newbury Oaks American Legion team that won the 1992 national championship have been released. Tighe Curran was let go from the St. Louis Cardinals’ Class-A team in Peoria, Ill., and Jeff Hook was released from the Houston Astros’ rookie league team in the Gulf Coast League. . . . Derek Wallace, formerly of Chatsworth High and Pepperdine, was traded Friday for the second time this year. The right-handed pitcher was dealt by the Royals with pitcher Gino Moronez for pitchers Jason Jacome and Allen McDill. Wallace was dealt to the Royals in April by the Chicago Cubs as part of a trade for outfielder Brian McRae.