Salmon Suffering Through Another Slow Beginning

Tim Salmon blasted a 403-foot home run over the left-field wall at Edison Field in his first at-bat this season on April 3 against the Yankees.

It is simply not true that the Angel right fielder and cleanup batter fell off the face of the earth after that hit. It only seemed that way, at least until Friday night.

In 31 at-bats since that home run, Salmon has two singles and three doubles. After hitting .349 with seven home runs and 23 runs batted in last April, the notoriously slow-starting Salmon is off to another slow start, batting .194 with one RBI after Friday night’s loss to the White Sox.

“I’ve been here before, it’s typical,” Salmon said. “I’ve got to have perseverance. It’s a character-builder. For guys like Mo [Vaughn] and I, we don’t see enough of the offspeed stuff in spring training, so our timing is off a bit. They’re not going to just lay fastballs in there for us.”

Indeed, against Toronto right-hander Chris Carpenter, who has an above-average fastball, Salmon was fed a steady diet of breaking and off-speed pitches and walked three times Monday night.

Salmon did line a Kelvim Escobar changeup into the gap in right center for a double Tuesday night, and after missing Wednesday night’s game because of strep throat, Salmon doubled to left off breaking-ball specialist Mike Sirotka in the sixth inning and doubled to right-center off another left-hander, Scott Eyre, in the eighth inning Friday night.

More reason for Salmon to be encouraged: Despite his struggles and Vaughn’s .216 average, the Angels are still 5-5.

“That’s a great feeling, knowing the team is doing pretty well and Mo and I haven’t really started hitting yet,” said Salmon, a career .291 hitter who has averaged 28 homers and 93 RBIs the past seven years.

“We have other guys coming through. And as bad as I’ve been swinging, it’s only been 10 days. I have a track record. I’ll pick it up.”

TONIGHT

ANGELS’

KENT BOTTENFIELD

(0-1, 3.86 ERA)

vs.

WHITE SOX’S

KIP WELLS

(0-1, 8.68)

Comiskey Park, Chicago, 11 a.m.

TV--Channel 9. Radio--KLAC (570), XPRS (1090).

* Update--After squaring off against Cy Young Award winners Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez in his first two starts as an Angel, Kent Bottenfield will oppose Wells, a 22-year-old right-hander who was a first-round pick out of Baylor in 1998 and was ranked 10th in Baseball America’s Top 100 college prospects. . Wells reached the big leagues in his first professional season, going 4-1 in seven starts at the end of 1999.