Hopes High for Ortiz in Debut

It wouldn’t be a stretch to call Ramon Ortiz’s start against the White Sox today the most highly anticipated Angel pitching debut since Jim Abbott took the mound for Anaheim in 1989.

Of course, that’s as much a reflection of the Angels’ inability to draft and develop outstanding starting pitchers in the past decade as it is of Ortiz’s talents.

Nevertheless, the young right-hander from the Dominican Republic will have some lofty expectations to live up to. That’s what happens when, despite your 6-foot, 165-pound frame, you have a 95-mph fastball, a nasty slider, an improving changeup and have been compared to Pedro Martinez.

Is Ortiz nervous about his first big league start?

“Nah,” he said through an interpreter. “I’ve never been nervous. I don’t know what that word is.”

Big crowds shouldn’t faze Ortiz--he pitched before 50,000 in the Dominican Winter League. But big league hitters . . .

“He hasn’t given in to pressure yet,” Angel General Manager Bill Bavasi said, “but that’s why they call this the big leagues. I think Ramon is going to have a tremendous career. But we have to remember he’s not a finished product.”

The Angels, on the other hand, are--they are finished for 1999--and that’s one reason Ortiz, who went 9-4 with a 2.82 earned-run average in 15 starts for double-A Erie and 5-3 with a 4.05 ERA in nine starts for triple-A Edmonton, and Jarrod Washburn are in the Angel rotation.

“In the situation we’re in, we have to use every game to our advantage,” Bavasi said, “and part of that is finding out about our young kids.”

What the Angels know about the 23-year-old Ortiz: He has a huge grin, a happy-go-lucky personality, and his energy level rises with the velocity of his fastball and his fortunes on the mound. However, Ortiz has had a tendency to lose his composure when things aren’t going well.

“I’m very excitable on the mound, just like Pedro,” said Ortiz, whose English is improving but who feels more comfortable speaking Spanish. “I feel very happy about being compared to Pedro. He’s my idol.”

Like Martinez, Ortiz is a strikeout pitcher--he has 446 strikeouts in 403 professional innings--and he made a strong recovery from a stress fracture in his right elbow, an injury that sidelined him for most of 1998.

Like Martinez, Ortiz grew up in the Dominican Republic with a dream of playing in the big leagues. In fact, when Ortiz was 16, his mother, Cleotilde, told him to stop working in the rice fields, where he had toiled since he was 6, and concentrate on baseball.

“This is what she always expected from me,” Ortiz said. “She always encouraged me and told me not to get desperate, that my time would come. . . . I always told myself, ‘I don’t just want to get to the big leagues, I want to stay there.’ ”

*

Though the Angels gave up two runs in the bottom of the eighth, one on Troy Glaus’ throwing error, to lose Wednesday night, center fielder Jim Edmonds shouldered his share of the blame. He was thrown out in a rundown between second and third on Jeff Huson’s second-inning grounder to short, and he failed to advance Tim Salmon to third after Salmon led off with a double in the fourth. Salmon would have scored on Glaus’ fly ball but was stranded when Huson struck out to end the inning.

ANGELS’

RAMON ORTIZ

(0-0, 0.00 ERA)

vs.

WHITE SOX’S

JIM PARQUE

(9-8, 4.33 ERA)

Comiskey Park, Chicago, 11 a.m. PDT

TV--WGN, Ch. 52 Radio--KLAC (570), XPRS (1090)

* Update--To make room for Ortiz on the roster, the Angels Wednesday optioned reliever Mike Fyhrie to Edmonton.