Nevin’s Frustration Growing Down in Tucson

Sure, leaving 18 men on base during a four-game series is frustrating, but baseball players don’t usually destroy parts of the clubhouse just four games into a new season.

By the time he got to Tucson, however, Phil Nevin was already ready to break something. Nevin, the first pick in the 1992 draft, believes he should be in the major leagues right now, not toiling in the desert for Houston’s triple-A affiliate, the Tucson Toros.

So he was in a foul mood when he left spring training for Tucson and after leaving all those potential runs batted in standing on the bases, he decided to rip the top off of a water fountain. He didn’t intend to catch the middle and ring fingers of his left hand on a jagged edge of sheet metal and slice them open.

“The whole thing has been blown way out of proportion,” Nevin said. “The fountain was already broken.”

True. Nevin failed to mention it had been broken by the intense bat barrage he had inflicted on his target before engaging in hand-to-hand combat.

Five stitches and 10 games later, Nevin was back in the Toros’ lineup, but to say he was happy to be there is stretching it a bit. Nevin, who batted .338 with runners in scoring position and had 93 RBIs for the Toros last season, was the first Tucson player since Glenn Davis in 1984 to drive in more than 90 runs.

He felt that was good enough to earn him a spot on the Astros’ roster and even the starting third base job, and it probably would have been if not for the play of Ken Caminiti, who is hitting .294 with eight home runs and 35 RBIs this season for Houston.

“They seem to feel I can play up there, too,” Nevin said. “At least they’ve told me they think I’m ready. But they don’t want me to go up there and sit. They have a pretty much set lineup so it’s really just a matter of having a spot for me, I guess. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

“There’s always talk about possible trades, but there’s nothing I can do about any of that. I guess I just have to wait my turn. It’s all out of my control and it’s extremely frustrating.”

So disappointing that Nevin has discovered the game he has always loved can be reduced to nothing more than dreaded work. A punch-the-clock-and-complete-your-shift sort of drudgery he thought was reserved for guys on the assembly line.

“There are days when I come to the park and I don’t even want to play,” he said. “I mean it really has gotten that bad at times, especially if you have just watched a game on TV and seen guys you played against in college and you know you can do everything they can do.

“It takes some effort to get up for each game and do your best each day. Once you’re on the field, you try to block it out, but it’s no fun. This is the first time in all the years that I’ve played the game, that I go to the park and it’s not fun. I’ve never felt like this before.”

Even when his heart isn’t totally in it, Nevin is an offensive force. The former Cal State Fullerton star hit .402 with 22 homers as the Titans advanced to the College World Series championship game in 1992 and, going into Sunday night’s game, he was batting .318 with two homers and 23 RBIs in 38 games with the Toros.

He’s slightly behind last year’s RBI pace--thanks to the ability of a mangled water cooler to fight back--but he’s shown the consistency and power to prove again he deserves a shot a major league pitching.

“You’re not going to hit many homers in this park,” Nevin said. “I’ve already hit quite a few balls that probably would have gone out of a lot of other parks.

“I’m not the type of guy who sets goals as far as numbers go, but by the end of the summer, I think you’ll see my RBIs up there and my batting average up there.”

But will Phil Nevin be up there? Or still down in the dumps down here?

“I have a great manager here (Rick Sweet) who also believes I’ve proven I can play in the majors,” Nevin said, “and he’s been very understanding of what I’m going through. He’ll give me a day off if I feel like I need it.

“But once you’re between the lines, you just try to turn your attitude around and remember that baseball is baseball. And I guess I’m just going to have to sit here and wait my turn.”

*

One man’s ceiling . . . Jason Moler, Nevin’s close friend and former Titan teammate, is one guy who’s very happy to be in triple-A.

Moler, a catcher who attended Esperanza, was moved up from Philadelphia’s double-A club in Reading (Pa.) to the triple-A affiliate in Scranton-Wilkes-Barre (Pa.). Moler was hitting .294 in double-A and is batting .325 with Scranton-Wilkes-Barre.

“Jason’s doing great,” Nevin said. “We talk quite a bit and he’s really having a good time these days. He’s definitely ahead of schedule and that’s a credit to the way he works and the way he plays the game.

“I’m happy that he was able to make the jump and prove all those scouts wrong. Jason’s a guy who will make to the big leagues one day and then he’ll be there for awhile.”