Things Go Afoul When Facing Helton

Throw a bad pitch, watch the other guy hit it out of the park, kick the dirt and move on. But nothing frustrates a pitcher more than throwing a good pitch, watching the other guy hit it foul, throwing another good pitch, watching the other guy again hit it foul, and so on, and so on.

So Todd Helton of the Colorado Rockies just might be the most annoying hitter in baseball. When the Dodgers activated ace Kevin Brown from the disabled list Tuesday, for his first start in six weeks, Manager Jim Tracy said he expected Brown to make 75 to 90 pitches. But, after five shutout innings--and only 68 pitches--Tracy removed Brown.

Why? The physical and mental exhaustion caused by Helton, who forced Brown to throw 11 pitches to him in the first inning and 11 more in the fourth.

“The Helton at-bat in the first inning inhibited him from pitching the sixth,” Tracy said.

That was a prelude to Thursday, when Helton fouled off 12 consecutive pitches during a 16-pitch at-bat against Dodger closer Jeff Shaw.

“That guy is some kind of hitter,” Dodger catcher Paul Lo Duca said. “He’s the one guy in this league I really don’t know what to do with.”

Helton batted .372 last season, tied with Boston’s Nomar Garciaparra for the major league lead, and he’s batting .335 this season, with 41 home runs and 86 strikeouts. Five major leaguers have more home runs--and 69 have more strikeouts, including such light-hitting middle infielders as Damian Jackson of the San Diego Padres, Alex Gonzalez of the Florida Marlins and Luis Rivas of the Minnesota Twins.

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More strikeouts: The two National League batters with the most strikeouts--infielders Jose Hernandez (156) and Richie Sexson (149)--play for the Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers’ hitting instructor is Hall of Famer Rod Carew, who never struck out more than 49 times in any of his seven seasons with the Angels.

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Longtime baseball executives despise the current generation of marketing consultants and their insistence on loud music, splashy promotions, kids’ play areas and other such attractions portrayed as necessary to attract fans to ballparks amid a blizzard of entertainment options. The best promotion, baseball executives like to repeat, is a winning team.

But the Atlanta Braves win so much they may have dulled their fan base. They failed to sell out playoff games last year, and they played to the three smallest crowds in Turner Field history during their current homestand, including 22,327 for Wednesday’s game against the Montreal Expos.

“It’s been a while since we’ve been out there in a game and you can hear virtually everything everybody has to say,” pitcher Tom Glavine said.

The Braves, gunning for their 10th consecutive division championship, have the best road record in the National League (39-25) and a losing home record (33-38). They have lost 13 of their past 17 home games, a performance Chipper Jones called “pathetic.”

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Jimmy Anderson of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Bobby Jones of the Padres and Jose Mercedes of the Baltimore Orioles remain in contention for the first 20-loss season since Brian Kingman lost 20 for the 1980 Oakland Athletics.

“A lot of guys bail out at the end,” Kingman told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It’s not so much out of shame, but because some arbitrator might use it in a hearing and it could be a million-dollar problem.”

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Outfielder Ray Lankford, traded to the Padres last month after 11 seasons with the Cardinals, returned to St. Louis this week and opened verbal fire on Cardinal Manager Tony La Russa.

“You don’t play in the big leagues, especially with one team, and not have the manager communicate with you,” Lankford said. “You still owe me that. And that was all I asked. The guy who is the manager probably hasn’t talked to me since June. Like I’m punished! Like I’m grounded! I’m a grown man. This ain’t Little League. Regardless of what a guy is doing, you’ve still got to respect him like a man. If I’m going to be judged by my stats, let’s check out his stats.”

Lankford entered Saturday batting .249 this season. In 37 postseason at-bats, he is hitting .189 with no home runs. La Russa batted .199 in a brief major league career, but he is 30-24 in postseason play as a manager. He, not Lankford, wears a World Series championship ring.