If Indians Steal Series, Lofton Will Be the Key : Baseball: Regarded as the best leadoff hitter in the game, he made good things happen against Seattle.

Game 6 of the American League championship series was about 30 seconds old when Seattle pitcher Randy Johnson whipped an 0-2 “purpose pitch” at the head of Cleveland’s Kenny Lofton, sending the Indian leadoff batter diving to the dirt.

There was friction between Lofton and Johnson, the Indians and the Mariners. Lofton called Johnson “just another pitcher” before Game 3, not the bulletin-board material you want to give a towering left-hander with a 99-m.p.h. fastball, and Mariner players thought several Indians, Lofton among them, were too brash.

So Johnson E-mailed some high heat, and Lofton got the message.

“It did intimidate me,” Lofton said.

But did it scare him? Hardly.

After Johnson flung him backward with another chin-high pitch in the fifth, Lofton counterpunched with an RBI single to left, which scored the first run of Cleveland’s 4-0, pennant-clinching victory.

Lofton added a bunt single in the eighth and scored all the way from second on a passed ball, a stun-run that gave the Indians a 3-0 lead and broke the Mariners’ spirit.

And when the game--and the series--was finally over, the Indians having eliminated the Mariners to gain their first World Series berth in 41 years, Johnson’s anger toward Lofton turned to respect.

“Of all the left-handers I’ve faced, he gives me the most fits,” Johnson said of Lofton, who went four for nine against him in the series, remarkable considering left-handers went 11 for 85 (.129) against the Big Unit this season.

“He’s a pesky little guy, and I tip my hat to him. He’s the type of hitter I have more trouble with than Frank Thomas or Mark McGwire.”

With superior pitching muffling the booming bats in both lineups for much of the series, the 6-foot, 180-pound Lofton was the difference for the Indians.

He went 11 for 24 for a series-high .458 average with five stolen bases and three runs batted in. He reached base at a .517 clip (15 for 29), just the thing Seattle Manager Lou Piniella said the Mariners had to avoid to win the series.

Asked after Tuesday’s game who the series most valuable player should be, Piniella replied: “Lofton.” Informed that Indian pitcher Orel Hershiser won the award, Piniella said perhaps they should have a most valuable pitcher and player.

“You use a term like ‘catalyst,’ whatever you want to use,” Cleveland Manager Mike Hargrove said. “When Kenny does his job, we’re good. When he doesn’t, we still have a chance, but we’re just not as good. In my mind, Kenny is the best leadoff hitter in baseball today.”

Lofton was touted as one the best players--not only leadoff hitters--in the game last spring. He finished fourth in the 1994 MVP voting, and in a league that includes such center-field talents as Seattle’s Ken Griffey Jr. and Toronto’s Devon White, Lofton won Gold Glove Awards in 1993 and ’94.

But a series of injuries--a bruised nerve in his lower back in May, a pulled hamstring and torn rib-cage cartilage in July--prevented Lofton from having the kind of season many expected. And the spray hitter seemed more bent on becoming a power hitter, sending numerous fly balls to the warning track in the first half of the season.

Because of the rib-cage injury, Lofton went on the disabled list from July 17 to Aug. 1, but said he didn’t feel completely sound until about Sept. 1.

From that point, Lofton was a blur on the basepaths, stealing 22 of his 54 bases in the final month of the season, including 14 in his last 11 games. He became the second AL player and fifth major leaguer in history to lead the league in steals in each of his first four seasons.

Equally important, Lofton abandoned his Griffey-wannabe swing and returned to the style that makes the Indian offense click. He finished with a .310 average, 22 doubles and a league-leading 13 triples.

“Kenny’s stroke has been short and quick, and he’s hitting the ball hard,” Cleveland batting instructor Charlie Manuel said.

Lofton has the kind of speed that could result in a 100-stolen-base season. He stole 62 bases in the minor leagues in 1990 and had seasons of 66, 70 and 60 stolen bases in Cleveland.

“But that’s not important to me, because I don’t think that will ever happen again,” Lofton said of 100 steals. “Pitchers key on runners too much. You have to study them and their moves a lot more.”

Lofton learns as quickly as he moves. He was successful on 77% of his stolen-base attempts at second (40 of 52), 81% (13 of 16) of his attempts at third and stole home once. He was five for five in championship-series attempts.

Atlanta has baseball’s most formidable pitching foursome in Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz and Steve Avery, but any time Lofton gets on base in the World Series it could spell trouble for the Braves.

“I try to get on and make the pitcher worry more about me than the hitter,” Lofton said. “A lot of things happen when that comes about. That’s my job--try to get on and steal a base.”

Said Cleveland catcher Tony Pena: “He’s a pain in the paths.”

Lofton, 27, has become one of the game’s elite players in only four seasons, an all-star in 1994 and ‘95, which raises another question: Just how good would he be if he had played baseball full time in college?

Lofton was a basketball player at Arizona, the sixth man on the Wildcats’ 1988 Final Four team and a starting guard on their 1989 team that was ranked No. 1 in the nation for much of the season.

He didn’t play baseball until his junior season at Arizona and appeared in only five games there, but he so impressed the Houston Astros with his speed and athleticism that they picked him in the 17th round in 1988.

Too bad they didn’t stick with him. Lofton hit .331 at double-A Osceola in 1990 and .308 at triple-A Tucson in 1991, but in his first and only tour with the Astros, at the end of the ’91 season, he hit .203 with 19 strikeouts in 74 at-bats.

Houston, convinced that Lofton couldn’t cut it in the major leagues, sent him and Dave Rohde to Cleveland for Willie Blair and Eddie Taubensee on Dec. 10, 1991, a trade that is best described by Indian fans in two words:

A steal.