Desert Bloom

As you watch Scott Smith, a 6-foot-2, 215-pound, muscle-bound right-handed hitter, swatting balls over the fence during JetHawk batting practice, all the numbers make sense.

4--his spot in the batting order.

17--his season home run total between the JetHawks and Class-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, third best among Mariner minor leaguers.

82--his total runs batted in this season.

And .332--his combined batting average.

Add it all to a 24-year-old outfielder with speed and a strong arm and Smith “has very good major league potential,” JetHawk Manager Dave Brundage said.

Which is why one number, 65, makes no sense at all. That’s the round in which the Mariners drafted Smith out of Texas A&M; in 1993.

The 65th round is usually home to high school kids who can run but can’t hit. Or junior college shortstops who might make good catchers. Or skinny, loose-armed pitchers who need to gain 20 pounds.

The 65th round, in fact, comes long after many teams have taken their scouting reports and gone home, choosing not to pick any more players even though the draft is unlimited.

Heck, the 65th round of the 1993 draft came 22 rounds after the White Sox drafted Carey Schueler, the general manager’s daughter.

Smith slipped through the cracks because somewhere along the line at Texas A&M; he earned a label that’s hard to shake: platoon player.

That label hung with him even after he signed with the Mariners, and he spent nearly two seasons facing only left-handed pitchers.

It wasn’t until the final month of the 1995 season that Smith earned a full-time job. In the year since he’s become an everyday player, Smith has batted .331 with 20 home runs and 99 RBIs.

He’s erased many doubts, including his own.

“Once I got in there I proved to myself and to some other people that I could hit right-handers,” Smith said.

There was a string of those “other people” that ran from Seattle to College Station, Texas.

Smith came to Texas A&M; as a barely recruited outfielder. He was given a token $400-a-semester scholarship only after Aggie coaches were tipped off about him by a local junior college coach.

His three seasons at Texas A&M; included a redshirt year, another season interrupted by an ankle injury and a final year sitting behind a couple of blue-chip freshmen.

With relatively little playing time, Smith didn’t expect much out of the draft in 1993. In fact, he assumed he wasn’t picked at all. But about a week after the draft, he finally got a call from Cotton Nye, a Mariner scout. Turns out the telegram Smith was supposed to receive went to the wrong address.

Nye told Smith the Mariners didn’t want to sign him immediately, but they wanted to keep an eye on him. Fortunately for Smith, the eyes of the Mariners were on him later that summer, in the National Baseball Congress tournament in Wichita, Kan.

Smith started the tournament with a three-for-four day, and didn’t slow down.

Sufficiently impressed with Smith’s hitting barrage, Nye went back to the hotel with Smith and signed him for $25,000, plus money to finish school.

Because Smith signed so late in the 1993 season, he didn’t start playing in the minors until 1994. Even then he missed the first half of the season because of an elbow ailment. When he finally reported to Class-A Appleton, Wis., he started slowly and wound up platooning the rest of the year.

In 1995, Smith was the least experienced of six outfielders at Riverside, so he continued playing against left-handed pitchers only, hitting .235.

“Just platooning is more of a mental game than anything,” Smith said. “I was wondering, ‘Why am I not playing? Am I not good enough?’ Sometimes I’d go two for three with two RBIs, then sit for two or three more days.”

Brundage, who managed last season at Riverside, said he had a dejected Smith sitting in his office on several occasions.

“He came in a couple times and was contemplating hanging ‘em up,” Brundage said. “He wasn’t getting the playing time and the same time he wasn’t swinging the bat, wasn’t utilizing the playing time that he was getting.

“I just told him what was ahead of him. I said, ‘You are capable of playing in the big leagues someday. And as long as you have a uniform on your back, you have that opportunity.’ ”

Smith’s break came in late July, when he was demoted to Appleton to make room in Riverside for Jose Cruz Jr., the Mariners’ first-round pick who had just signed.

“We agreed that maybe it’s best that he go and get some playing time,” Brundage said. “He went down there and took the right attitude and came back a much better hitter.”

After finishing 1995 with a .327 average in Appleton, Smith returned there in 1996, also because of a glut of outfielders in Lancaster. But at the all-star break, after hitting .329 with 10 homers and 48 RBIs with the Timber Rattlers, Smith was sent back to the California League.

As a new man.

“I had put up some decent numbers, gained a lot of confidence, proved to myself that I could hit,” Smith said.

In 34 games with the JetHawks through Tuesday, Smith was hitting .338 with seven homers and 34 RBIs. He had one recent stretch of 18 games in which he hit .405.

“It was amazing,” Smith said. “I just knew I was going to get a hit.”

Said Brundage: “Confidence is the main thing. You are talking about a guy who played maybe two or three times a week last year. He’s become more of a student of the game, understanding more about what the pitchers are doing.

“He’s starting to blossom into a pretty good hitter.”