Davis, Now Healthy, Is Helping Orioles Recover

Eric Davis got to his locker, checked his beeper, which was buzzing, then turned to face reporters.

So Eric, were you taking all the way on that 3-0 pitch in the ninth?

Davis grinned and squealed: “You don’t swing at a 3-0 pitch. You can’t hit a 98 mph fastball up around your chin.”

The beeper was buzzing again.

You seem to like being a designated hitter.

“Don’t say that too loud,” Davis said, peeking to see if Manager Ray Miller was within earshot.

Davis, as always, was loving every minute of it.

A year ago, Baltimore Oriole players talked about the emotional lift Davis provided, as he battled colon cancer. Sunday, he propped them up with physical actions.

Davis homered twice in a 7-4 victory over the Angels. He also walked to load the bases in the ninth--when closer Troy Percival couldn’t find the strike zone--and later scored in the three-run inning.

The Orioles are trying to make a statement that their season isn’t over after a dismal first half. They have won 10 of 11 games, with Davis being one of the catalysts. The two home runs Sunday gave him four in eight days, all of which have helped win games.

Davis is making a bigger statement. He missed much of last season after a cancerous tumor, the size of a baseball, was discovered. He is not only back playing but as well as ever.

It has been an amazing recovery.

“I’m not going to think that far back,” Davis said. “That’s all in the past. I’m not going to reflect on what happened last year.”

Others do.

“People hear the word ‘cancer’ and they think that’s the end, it’s time to go sell the ranch,” Miller said. “People see Eric playing baseball again and it gives them hope.”

Davis underwent 18 chemotherapy sessions, the last in December. Miller said that Davis was still fatigued in spring training and the first part of the season.

“It was obvious when I played him three games in a row, he got tired,” Miller said. “I couldn’t use him every day.”

Davis’ tender right elbow and an injury to designated hitter Harold Baines changed that. Davis has been the team’s designated hitter the last three weeks. In the last 24 games, he is hitting .344 with five home runs and 22 runs batted in.

His hits have been winning big games recently. Davis’ two-run, eighth-inning homer off Pedro Martinez gave the Orioles a 3-2 victory over Boston on July 10. Two days later, he had a home run and five RBIs in a 11-7 victory over the Red Sox.

Sunday, Davis homered in the sixth to tie the score, 1-1. He hit a two-run homer in the seventh to tie the score, 4-4. And he had fun with it afterward.

“The ball was just where my club was,” Davis “Not all home runs are mistakes.”

Davis is hitting .299 with 15 home runs and 42 RBIs for the season. A pace that could earn him a bookend comeback player of the year award, to go with the one he won in 1996.

“I just take the ups and downs in this game and ride the ups as long as I can,” Davis said. “I’m just playing baseball.”