Torn Ligaments to Sideline Boston’s Frye for the Season

His season over before it began, the words came slowly for Jeff Frye as he rubbed the brace running nearly the entire length of his left leg.

“It’s pretty devastating,” the Red Sox second baseman said. “It’s just something else I’ll have to overcome.”

The official diagnosis--the one he knew was coming--came Wednesday afternoon. Tests on his left knee showed he had torn the anterior cruciate ligament and lateral cartilage during a rundown drill Tuesday.

He is expected to have reconstructive surgery as soon as possible and sit out the entire season.

But Frye, who never seemed to begin spring training with a starting job no matter how well he played the previous season, vowed to return in 1999.

“I kind of get a fire going inside of me when people tell me what I can’t do. So I’m sure they’ll say he can’t come back from this,” Frye said, “but I’ll be back to get my job next year.”

The list of possible replacements already in camp is headed by veteran utilityman Mike Gallego and career minor-leaguer Lou Merloni, who is coming off a strong season with Boston’s double-A and triple-A teams.

Mark Lemke, a free agent after playing the past 10 seasons with Atlanta, also is available. Boston Manager Jimy Williams was a Brave coach for most of those years.

“Is he a good guy for us to go out and get? I don’t know,” Williams said. “Did I mention his name? Yes.”

So did General Manager Dan Duquette, who also mentioned another free agent, infielder Greg Gagne, a shortstop who hasn’t played second base since 1988 and was with the Dodgers the past two seasons.

Duquette said he’d like to see what the second basemen in camp, including utilityman Mike Benjamin and prospect Donnie Sadler, can do.

None of them is likely to do as well as Frye, who is coming off a career-best .312 batting average with 41 extra-base hits and only 44 strikeouts. He was being counted on as the leadoff hitter in a powerful lineup that includes Mo Vaughn, Nomar Garciaparra and John Valentin.

His loss, Duquette said, “is more of an impact offensively than defensively.”

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Florida Marlin Manager Jim Leyland joked that his team had the younger lineup against the Miami Hurricanes, and the youngsters came through.

Twenty-year-old Julio Ramirez had three hits and 19-year-old Nelson Lara closed a combined six-hitter to help the Marlins beat the Hurricanes, 9-2, at Melbourne, Fla., in the first exhibition game of spring training.

It was the Marlins’ first game since winning the World Series last October, but none of the players in the lineup were on Florida’s postseason roster.

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Four Hall of Famers with ties to the Tampa Bay area--Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Monte Irvin and Al Lopez--will simultaneously throw out ceremonial pitches for the Devil Rays’ inaugural game on March 31.

Williams, a six-time American League batting champion who hit .406 in 1941 and finished with a career average of .344, played for the Boston Red Sox when the team trained in nearby Sarasota.

Musial, meanwhile, became one of St. Petersburg’s favorites while training here with the St. Louis Cardinals during a career in which he was a 20-time All-Star, won seven National League batting titles and hit .331.

Lopez, a former major league catcher and manager (1,410-1,004 record in 17 years) is the only native of Tampa in the Hall of Fame, while Irvin was a Negro League star before playing in the majors for the New York Giants, who trained in St. Petersburg.

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At 39 and heading into a 16th big league season, Orel Hershiser’s formula for success starts with a return to basics.

Hershiser, a free-agent acquisition by the San Francisco Giants, said he strayed from his original pitching style while in Cleveland the past three years.

He believes his reunion with Giant pitching coach Ron Perranoski holds the key to rediscovering his old delivery and perhaps even adding velocity and sharper movement to his sinker and curve ball.

Perranoski first worked with Hershiser in the minor leagues in 1979, and they spent 12 years together with the Dodgers.

“[Pitching coach] Mark Wiley did a good job in Cleveland, but he never saw me pre-surgery,” Hershiser said. “Ron saw me pre-surgery and was my coach to bring me back from surgery, pitching-wise. If anybody knows my delivery and the way my pitches should react when I was successful, Perry’s the guy.”

It didn’t take Perranoski long to determine that Hershiser had slightly changed his throwing motion and release point. The result was that his fabled sinker wasn’t breaking down as sharply as it had in the past and his curveball flattened out a bit.

“Maybe he was doing it unconsciously, but his arm was out and away from his head a little bit too much, and he was arching his back a little too much,” Perranoski said. “What we’re doing now is just getting his arm position to where the ball is going to react the way we want it to.”

Hershiser, fifth among active pitchers with 179 victories, has spent the last week in spring training getting his pitching delivery down. He believes the changes will increase the speed and movement on his breaking pitches, which he said dropped 2-3 mph to the mid-80s last year.

“Hopefully this year I’m going to make it go up a little bit because Perry already found a couple things in my delivery that have helped my consistency,” Hershiser said. “Maybe I’ve got a chance to make it go up again. It’s already helped me a lot.”

Hershiser, who signed a one-year, $3.45-million contract with an option for 1999, also said he could benefit from returning the National League. He spent three years in the American League with Cleveland, going 45-21, including a 14-6 record with a 4.47 ERA last season.