Blazing Start for Bohanon Proves Worth

Brian Bohanon turned his second-half success with the Dodgers last year into a three-year, $9-million contract with the Colorado Rockies, a free-agent signing that created almost as much industry consternation as Kevin Brown’s $105-million deal with the Dodgers. Bohanon now appears to have been a bargain.

He is 4-0, the first Colorado pitcher ever to win his first four starts in a season, and the only Colorado starter to have won between Darryl Kile’s win in the opener and Kile’s 6-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Thursday.

Bohanon wasn’t exactly sharp as he notched his fourth in a row on Wednesday, giving up nine hits and five runs in five innings of a 9-7 victory over the Cardinals, but he controlled a nemesis named Mark McGwire, holding him hitless in two at-bats and hitting him with a pitch in a third.

McGwire had been six for nine against Bohanon and had homered in each of the last four games Bohanon had pitched against him.

“He hits my changeup, he hits my curveball, he hits my slider,” Bohanon said. “I’ve run out of pitches to throw him. I just try to pick the spots where he’s going to hit his home runs.”

Two years ago, the left-hander said, McGwire hit a 510-foot shot against him at Busch Stadium. Last year, it was 511 feet.

“Same place too,” he said. “In the runway above Big Mac Land. I didn’t know I could throw a ball that far.”

How bad is the Milwaukee Brewers’ pitching? Well, with the Jim Abbott reclamation project on the ropes, the Brewers are still willing to try another with their signing of Hideo Nomo.

Nomo has already been released by the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs, who have six pitchers on the disabled list and still didn’t think the former Dodger was worthy of a big-league opportunity. He was also worked out by the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday, but the Indians canceled a second workout scheduled for Thursday because, a club source said, “he hadn’t shown us anything on Tuesday.”

Don Baylor, the Atlanta Braves’ hitting instructor and former Rocky manager, is considered a possibility when the inevitable ax falls on Baltimore Oriole Manager Ray Miller. That move might have been made already, but the Orioles were believed hesitant to create a distraction before Monday’s exhibition with Cuba at Camden Yards.

Miller painted owner Peter Angelos into a corner last Sunday with his nationally publicized tirade, ripping Angelos’ $84-million product.

Baylor, looking at the aging, poorly constructed, pitching-thin Orioles, may decide he is better off where he is, in which case Eddie Murray might be the Orioles’ choice. Oh well, who needs postgame quotes?

Atlanta officials are ecstatic about the impact Baylor is having on the maturing process of Andruw Jones and the consistency of Brian Jordan.

Jordan drove in 21 runs in the Braves’ first 20 games and is on a pace to surpass his career high of 104 in 1996. He drove in 91 last year with St. Louis, frequently batting behind a guy who homered every 7.3 at-bats.

“[McGwire] cleaned the bases a lot,” Jordan said. “I could have produced a little more, no question. But you have to have someone who can run in front of you too. My doubles wouldn’t score [McGwire] from first but they do score Chipper [Jones] from first.”

How impressive has the other Jones been?

“Overall, on a scale of one to 10, he’s clearly a 10,” teammate Otis Nixon said of Andruw Jones. “Only Ken Griffey Jr. ranks with him.”