Gooden Indian Debut Is Sunday

There is finally room for Dwight Gooden in the Cleveland Indians’ starting rotation.

Gooden, recalled from his rehab assignment Friday, will make his long-awaited debut for the Indians in his first start of the season Sunday.

It will be the first start of Gooden’s 13-year major league career with a team that does not play in New York. Gooden, who played 11 seasons with the Mets and two with the Yankees, takes the place of Chad Ogea, who was put on the 15-day disabled list Friday because of a strained chest muscle.

Indian Manager Mike Hargrove would not commit to giving Gooden more than one start for now. Ogea is expected to miss at least two starts after straining his right pectoral muscle Tuesday at Kansas City.

Gooden, 33, signed to a two-year $5.575-million contract in December, started the season on the disabled list because of tendinitis in his right biceps. He made four rehab starts for triple-A Buffalo, going 1-2 with a 9.00 earned-run average.

Hargrove said Gooden’s fastball, once the most promising express since Nolan Ryan’s, eventually was clocked at 88-90 mph after a slow start.

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Detroit reliever Doug Brocail was suspended for two games for hitting Oakland’s Rickey Henderson with a pitch last week, but Brocail immediately appealed the penalty.

Brocail hit Henderson on the left ankle in the ninth inning, two innings after Oakland’s Mike Mohler hit Bobby Higginson with a pitch. Both benches emptied after Henderson was hit.

Because Brocail appealed, the penalty cannot begin until after a hearing before AL President Gene Budig.

Budig fined the pitcher $500.

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Darryl Strawberry was in the Yankees’ starting lineup Friday night after he and pitchers Graeme Lloyd and Jeff Nelson appealed their suspensions for their roles in a brawl Tuesday night with the Baltimore Orioles.

Strawberry already had served two of the three games for which he was suspended, but, with Tim Wakefield pitching for the Boston Red Sox, he was the designated hitter in the opener of the three-game series between two of the AL’s top three teams.

Lloyd’s three-game suspension was scheduled to start today, after Strawberry’s would have ended. Nelson’s two-game suspension would have begun Tuesday, after Lloyd returned.

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Frustrated by chronic elbow problems, Cincinnati pitcher Jose Rijo went back home to the Dominican Republic a few weeks ago to give his arm a rest and reconsider his comeback.

He played catch last week, decided the elbow was feeling a little better and returned to Cincinnati to continue with his comeback--but on his terms this time.

Rijo, 33, won the 1990 World Series MVP award while leading the Reds to their sweep of Oakland. He hasn’t pitched in a regular-season game since 1995, when he had the first of four major elbow operations.

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St. Louis third baseman Gary Gaetti will be sidelined about three days because of an eye injury sustained in Thursday night’s loss to Philadelphia.

Gaetti was injured after he failed to catch a popup in swirling winds. The ball bounced off the artificial turf and hit him near the left eye. Doctors told him to avoid physical activity for three days.

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Boston put outfielder Damon Buford on the 15-day disabled list because of a knee injury.