BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Rodriguez Finds Home North of the Border

Obtained by the Montreal Expos on May 23 of last season, former Dodger outfielder Henry Rodriguez was found to have a broken right leg a week later.

Damaged goods? There were some in the Montreal organization who believed it, but no one is complaining now.

Rodriguez is doing big-time damage, with nine home runs and leading the National League in runs batted in with 26 while batting .320 as the major power source for the surprising Expos, who lead the National League East and had an eight-game winning streak end Saturday.

“Coming to Montreal opened a new door for my career,” said Rodriguez, a part-time player in parts of three seasons with the Dodgers and then packaged with Jeff Treadway for Roberto Kelly and Joey Eischen.

“I have a lot of confidence now,” Rodriguez said. “I have a manager who’s going to play me against left-handers. I hit third on a team that’s scoring a lot of runs. I come to the park knowing I’m going to play. All of that has to give you a lift.”

As his former club continues its search for a regular left fielder, Rodriguez refuses to gloat, even though Manager Felipe Alou says:

“Right now he’s on a cloud that he doesn’t want to come down from. He’s at a stage now where they can’t get a fastball by him and he’s starting to take left-handers to the opposite field. He’ll be able to do whatever he wants, the way he’s hitting now.”

At 28, Rodriguez said there is nothing magic about it, just that he is playing regularly and has improved his strength through daily weightlifting. He has hit two homers off Todd Stottlemyre of the St. Louis Cardinals that measure a cumulative 856 feet. He hit a home run off Donovan Osborne of the Cardinals while literally jumping back into the batter’s box when umpire Wally Bell failed to recognize his request for time. His name in Montreal--no disrespect intended to a guy named Aaron--is Hammerin’ Henry.

“If these guys want to keep throwing me fastballs, I’ll keep hitting home runs,” he said.

Having already eclipsed his previous season high for homers--he twice hit eight for the Dodgers--Rodriguez said he knew this was coming even if no one else did. While hitting poorly in the Dominican Winter League, he told Alou, “Don’t worry about what I’m doing in winter ball. I’m ready to have a big year.”

Last year he sat out 83 games. X-rays disclosed the broken shinbone after he had played only nine games with the Expos.

It’s not clear how it happened, but Rodriguez had fouled a ball off his shin shortly before the trade.

Kevin Malone, who made the trade as Expo general manager and is now assistant general manager of the Baltimore Orioles, said the Dodgers told him about the shin injury, but no one suspected it was anything more.

“He was hurt when we got him, but I don’t think he was damaged goods,” Malone said, although others in the organization privately disagree.

“Fred Claire [the Dodgers’ executive vice president] doesn’t operate that way,” Malone said. “I think it was a minor injury that became worse when Henry continued to play on it. No one could predict he’d be doing what he is now, but we knew he was a quality player. Unfortunately, he couldn’t show it last year.”

Or show it in Los Angeles.

“Even though I wasn’t playing on a regular basis with the Dodgers, I was still in a state of shock at the time of the trade,” Rodriguez said. “I cried, sitting on the plane to Montreal, but I knew I was in good hands with Felipe Alou.

“I mean, the Dodgers always had somebody ahead of me or somebody else they wanted to look at. I always knew if I went hitless I might not play the next day. In 1990 I had 28 homers and 109 RBIs at Albuquerque and didn’t even get a call up in September.

“They had Kal Daniels, then Darryl Strawberry, Eric Davis and Cory Snyder, and they were producing guys like Raul Mondesi, Eric Karros, Billy Ashley and Todd Hollandsworth.”

In small-market, payroll-conscious Montreal, there’s always an opening. There’s always a Marquis Grissom or Larry Walker leaving, and Rodriguez has clearly made the most of his opportunity. He’s even becoming trilingual.

“The other day a kid who only spoke French was on the dugout talking to me,” Rodriguez said. “I couldn’t understand a word, but I picked up a ball and gave it to him.

“He gave me a big smile. I guess we understood each other after all.”

WHO’S ON FIRST?

The answer to that question is Jose Offerman, and Kansas City Manager Bob Boone hopes it doesn’t turn into a comedy routine.

It took only two weeks for the former Dodger shortstop to wear out his welcome at that position with the Royals.

Offerman, who was replacing Greg Gagne, who is replacing Offerman, made four errors in his first nine games, was benched for five games, returned to make another error in his first game back, then came out again in favor of David Howard, and on Tuesday, borrowed a glove and was assigned to first base for the first time in his career.

Boone, trying to patch an atrocious defense in the aftermath of a payroll purge that found Gagne and Gary Gaetti leaving as free agents and Wally Joyner being traded to the San Diego Padres for Bip Roberts, another liability with the leather, isn’t saying Offerman will never return to shortstop, “but he has been spectacular at first base and he has also looked good taking ground balls at second, where he reminds me of Manny Trillo.

“We’ve been a bad club in a lot of areas and the first thing I had to fix was the defense, and it looks like we’ve done that. Jose is a professional hitter and I wanted to get his bat going and take the monkey off his back [at shortstop]. The baggage he carries is that his name is ‘Jose Offerman Who Made 37 Errors at Shortstop Last Year the Most By a Dodger Since Pee Wee Reese.’

“To me, he looks like a kid who’s been out of position and I told him, ‘Let me make you happy playing baseball.’ It would have been nice if we could have sent him to a beer league to play first base for 10 days. but we didn’t have that luxury and he hasn’t looked like he needed it. I mean, [first base] is only a matter of catching ground balls and playing catch with the guys.”

Of course, that has never come automatic for Offerman, but maybe he has found a home.

CAN SCHOTTZIE PLAY?

Cincinnati stumbled through a 2-8 trip that ended Thursday in Montreal, with Manager Ray Knight using a different lineup for the 23rd consecutive game. Because of injuries and ineffectiveness, he has used nine outfielders.

“I’ve had no choice,” Knight said. “I don’t ever change a lineup just to change. I hate change. I’m a constant person. I do the same things every day. I’d be easy to stalk.”

Knight’s outfield? Let’s see. Thomas Howard is off the disabled list but Reggie Sanders is on it. Chad Mottola is up from triple A, but a slumping Mike Kelly has been sent down. Davis has been showing some encouraging signs in his return from a year of retirement, but Vince Coleman, batting about .150 in his return to the National League, struck out 23 times in his first 68 plate appearances and thinks umpires still have it in for him because he extended the time of so many games by drawing pickoff throws while a young base-stealing threat with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Coleman’s paranoia aside, the Reds are operating without their entire outfield of last year: Sanders, Ron Gant and Deion Sanders-Darren Lewis.

The owner allowed Gant and Lewis to leave as free agents after Deion Sanders was traded for Lewis in July. The Reds need Reggie Sanders, but he’s out at least three to five weeks because of a back injury.

PITCHING PAUCITY

There is no better illustration of the abysmal state of major league pitching than the five April games between the Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers, who had the worst staffs in the American League last year and are out to prove that was no fluke. The Tigers, who finally ended an eight-game losing streak Friday, lost twice to the Twins this week, 24-11 and 11-1.

In the five games, all played without Kirby Puckett, the teams scored 100 runs. They failed to score in only 12 of the 45 innings, and batted around in six of the half innings.

“You’ve got guys with no control and little experience pitching in the major leagues,” Minnesota second baseman Chuck Knoblauch said. “Hitters are bigger and stronger and working year-round to improve, and there are pitching problems everywhere with another expansion in two years. It’s scary.”

BELLE WRINGER

It now appears there was more to do with the Cleveland Indians’ recent decision to break off contract talks with Albert Belle than his rejection of a five-year, $43-million offer.

In the first week of the new season alone, there was the previously undisclosed incident in which Belle threw a baseball at a photographer. There was his failure to show at a mandatory welcome-home luncheon, where he was to receive an award voted by teammates. There was his failure to appear for a contracted commercial that was to pay him $25,000.

As in the past, the Indians continue to downplay Belle’s behavior and insist they are still interested in re-signing him--he’s eligible for free agency when the season ends--but privately they are said to be weighing that decision. He may be a pain, but add Belle’s totals for the first 18 games this year to his 144-game totals of last season and you have a full season of 57 home runs, 143 runs batted in, 138 runs, 56 doubles, 195 hits and a .317 average.

NAMES AND NUMBERS

--Moving to St. Louis with Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan, his former Oakland manager and pitching coach, Dennis Eckersley has eased concern over his precipitous decline of the last three years by registering five saves in his first 11 2/3 innings without an earned run. But Eckersley has concerns of his own. Referring to La Russa’s use of 66 relief pitchers through 22 games, he said, “We’ve been in more close games in less than a month than you have in three months. You just can’t keep going on like that. You’re going to destroy your staff.”