Abbott Finds Minors Tough on Control

Whatever Jim Abbott was looking to rediscover in his first minor league appearance, he didn’t quite find it Saturday night in the sweltering heat of Arizona.

Abbott, who was 1-15 with a 7.79 earned-run average before being sent down to Vancouver by the Angels on Wednesday, looked like a pitcher still searching for his control, his fastball and his confidence. Abbott gave up three runs on three hits, but walked five batters in six innings.

“There’s still some work to be done, but I’m fairly pleased with some of the steps I took,” he said. “If I was razor sharp, I probably wouldn’t be here.

“I felt like I threw some good fastballs and some good sliders. I choked a few fastballs. I tried to throw them too hard and I bounced a few.”

He wasn’t hit hard in six innings of work against a Phoenix Firebird team that had only one legitimate prospect in the lineup, right fielder Jacob Cruz. Abbott gave up two singles and an opposite-field home run in the sixth by designated hitter Keith Williams that traveled about 360 feet.

Abbott didn’t get a decision, though he left with a 4-3 lead. Vancouver rallied to win, 8-6.

Abbott’s velocity was about what it has been this season--83 to 86 miles an hour--but his location wasn’t great. He threw two wild pitches and fell behind on 14 of 24 batters. Of his 85 pitches, only 47 were strikes. During one stretch in the third inning, he threw 10 consecutive balls.

Three years ago, Abbott was throwing a no-hitter for the Yankees against the Cleveland Indians and five years ago he won 18 games for the Angels, but Saturday he got his first taste of minor league baseball. As he took the mound, a 1984 Buick La Sabre was circling Scottsdale Stadium’s field on Used Car night. The promotion, along with Abbott, helped draw the Firebirds’ third biggest crowd of the season, 6,813. It was 100 degrees at game time.

A scout with for a National League team who was sitting behind the plate with a radar gun said Abbott had lost seven or eight mph off his fastball from three years ago.

“His velocity isn’t good, but that isn’t the problem,” he said. “He’s got to throw strikes, and I mean on the first pitch.”

Another National League team’s scout said, “He can’t make the ball do what he wants it do and he can’t control it.”

Abbott’s lack of control led to two runs in the third. He walked two batters, threw a wild pitch and gave up two sharply hit singles through the infield. The second base hit by Williams drove in two runs.

“He was grinding instead of letting it happen in the first three innings,” Vancouver catcher Chris Turner said. “He wasn’t letting it flow.”

Abbott is expected to work three more times with Vancouver before he is called up in September by the Angels. He said adjusting to minor league life hasn’t been difficult.

“It was harder leaving and packing up,” he said. “That was very hard to do. Showing up here, I know a lot of the guys and they’ve made me feel very comfortable.”