Alicea Getting Back on Feet

Second baseman Luis Alicea got dressed in the Angel clubhouse, stood up from his chair, walked to the Oakland Coliseum field and took batting practice Friday afternoon. No great accomplishment . . . unless you saw Alicea five days ago.

“I had to roll out of bed to get up,” Alicea said of the severe back spasms that have sidelined him this week. “I had to walk like a hunchback. At one point I felt like I was almost broken in half.”

Alicea, who was injured when he was hit in the lower back by a Hideo Nomo pitch July 3, was examined Thursday and found to have no disk problems. The muscles in his lower back were still inflamed, though, and he is not expected to return until Monday at the earliest.

“It’s a relief,” said Alicea, who saw a chiropractor twice over the All-Star break. “You hear so many stories about people with lower back problems . . . I was so stiff all of a sudden that I could barely move. But I feel pretty good now. Hopefully by Monday I’ll be 100%.”

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Reliever Shigetoshi Hasegawa tried his hotel room and then went to a mall near the team’s Oakland hotel, but he could not find Hideki Irabu’s New York Yankee debut on television Thursday night. So he had to settle for highlights of his countryman’s rousing performance in a 10-3 victory over Detroit.

“He looks the same as he did last year, but a little fatter because he hasn’t played games since last August,” Hasegawa said. “He can do it. He was the No. 1 pitcher in Japan.”

Hasegawa doesn’t know Irabu as well as Nomo, but he suspects Irabu thrived in the circus atmosphere of Yankee Stadium, where 51,901 fans and 300 media members witnessed his 6 2/3-inning, five-hit, nine-strikeout gem.

“I’m sure it was crazy there, but he likes that,” Hasegawa said. “That’s why he wanted to play in New York . . . I’m looking forward to seeing him face to face. Maybe by that time I’ll be a starter and I can beat him, who knows?”

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Right fielder Tim Salmon, who has not made the All-Star team in his five seasons, was a bit peeved that Chicago White Sox slugger Albert Belle told American League Manager Joe Torre he preferred not to play in Tuesday’s game.

“When you’re one of the best players in the game, I guess you can do things like that,” said Salmon, who was hitting .286 with 15 homers and 61 runs batted in before Friday night’s game. “He’s been there before, and maybe he had a different outlook because of that. It would have been nice to be there.”

Salmon, however, did not get his hopes up.

“I figured if I didn’t go last year, when I had 22 homers at the break, I’d never go,” Salmon said. “There’s a lot of great players who don’t go, and what happened when I didn’t? I got to spend three extra days with my family.”

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TODAY’S GAME

ANGELS’ CHUCK FINLEY (5-6, 4.89 ERA) vs. ATHLETICS’ ARIEL PRIETO (6-5, 4.50 ERA)

Oakland Coliseum, 1 p.m. Radio--KTZN (710).

* Update--Eddie Murray, on the disabled list since June 12 because of tendinitis in his right wrist, continues to take batting practice, and the Angels will probably decide next week to activate him or send him on a minor league rehabilitation assignment. General Manager Bill Bavasi said Friday if the Angels’ four-man rotation is successful, “it would almost eliminate the need to trade for a starting pitcher.” Finley closed the first half of the season with two of his best starts of the season, giving up one run on five hits in 7 1/3 innings of a 4-1 victory at Colorado on July 1 and throwing a four-hit shutout with 13 strikeouts to beat Seattle on Sunday.