Grand Old Game Feeling the Pain of Injuries

In another painful week in the baseball ER, Ken Caminiti, Billy Wagner, Rey Ordonez and Chris Gomez were declared, in all likelihood, out for the season.

They join John Smoltz, Gary DiSarcina, Tom Gordon, Bret Saberhagen, John Valentin, Wilson Alvarez, Sterling Hitchcock, Ruben Mateo, Eddie Perez, Justin Thompson and Rudy Seanez, among others, in that costly category.

For the San Diego Padres, however, the week yielded a moral victory. It had only one pitcher headed toward the disabled list.

Stan Spencer was outdueling Randy Johnson on Monday when forced out because of a forearm strain that is expected to sideline him for at least four weeks.

He will soon join eight other pitchers on the Padres’ disabled list, the team having put 10 pitchers on the list this year.

Only Matt Clement, 25, and Brian Meadows, 24, remain from an anticipated rotation that now includes Brian Tollberg, 27, up from triple A; Adam Eaton, 22, up from double A, and a mystery guest who will pitch Tuesday against the Dodgers.

“It seems like every other week it’s been another guy [injured],” said General Manager Kevin Towers, who has also put five position players on the disabled list. “As competitive as the [National League West] is, it’s difficult to lose that much of your rotation and stay in the hunt.

“We’re a mid-market team with a payroll of about $50 million, but we’ve had about $20 million of that on the disabled list, meaning we’re trying to compete with a payroll of $30 million. The Dodgers may have the financial resources to overcome that. We don’t.”

The pattern was set when Towers traded Andy Ashby to Philadelphia in November for Carlton Loewer, Steve Montgomery and Eaton. Loewer, a projected starter, then fell out of a deer blind while hunting, broke a leg and has yet to pitch. Montgomery, the expected setup man, developed a sore shoulder and has yet to pitch.

Thankfully, Towers says, Eaton has made an impressive debut, contributing to what has been “the one bright spot in all this,” the performance of several young pitchers when given unexpected opportunities.

Tollberg, for instance, gave up only one hit in seven innings of his debut Tuesday, a 3-1 victory in Arizona.

“I took the scenic route,” he said of a six-year minor league career that began with a $500-a-month job with the Chillicothe (Ohio) Paints of the independent Frontier League, where he lived with a farm family, never dreaming he would be the first Frontier League graduate to reach the majors.

The Padres, of course, are not the only team experiencing major pitching injuries. The Cleveland Indians, for instance, have used 23 pitchers, the Angels 21.

Towers, talking generally about the widespread injuries of recent years, favors two moves--raising the mound to pre-1969 height “when there were a lot less pitching injuries,” and testing for steroid use in the major leagues. The Padres have tested their minor leaguers for two years, but the players’ union opposes major league testing.

“It’s stupid to ignore what I think is a rampant situation,” Towers said. “I think the stuff is more prevalent in major league clubhouses than alcohol, tobacco or any other drug, but the attitude seems to be, ‘Let’s not worry about it until someone dies.’ We should be testing as much as we can.”

Towers is not alone in believing that muscle-building substances have contributed to the injury siege, but baseball has no rule against use of over-the-counter supplements such as creatine and androstenedione, despite studies linking andro to heart and liver damage, and the production of estrogen. Baseball has said that more studies are needed, which means high schoolers will continue to mimic big leaguers, and the issue may resurface by the next millennium.

In the meantime, according to a study by San Francisco Giant trainer Stan Conte that has been widely circulated, the average number of players put on each team’s disabled list during a season rose from 10.2% in 1989 to 13.4% in 1998, an increase of 31.4% that can’t totally be pinned on use of supplements.

Many baseball people, expressing a long-held belief, still think there’s too much emphasis on muscle building without a balancing program of flexibility drills, an approach that often starts at a young age now, leading to later breakdowns.

At the same time, who can blame the players?

More muscle translates to more millions in this era of offense, and because of the inflated salaries and multiyear commitments, both clubs and players are quicker to seek the protection of the disabled list, inflating the injury rolls. Old-timers whose salaries were determined year by year and who simply rubbed a little dirt on their wounds still shake their heads.

In addition, advancements in medical technology have enabled players to come back even stronger from elbow and shoulder reconstruction. Why not sacrifice a year now for added years in the future?

It’s all part of a nasty trend and no fun for a manager trying to figure out his rotation and lineup.

Cleveland’s Charlie Manuel, with Manny Ramirez and David Justice sidelined, was asked the other night who would hit cleanup for him next, and said, “I’ll go back to the hotel, think about it, write out some lineup cards, watch ‘SportsCenter’--and wish I had Mark McGwire.”

McGwire, of course, is still with the St. Louis Cardinals, who have been playing the last month without injured third baseman Fernando Tatis.

There’s no single answer, but Towers would suggest that it would be helpful if the industry stopped testing for juiced baseballs and started testing for juiced bodies.