The names of Jeff Leonard, Pedro Guerrero and Jack Clark appear often among the leaders in virtually every offensive category in the National League. For much of last season, those names appeared nowhere at all. For much of last season, those players were lost to their teams: the Giants` Leonard for the last two months with an injured wrist, the Dodgers` Guerrero for all but 31 games with a knee injury, the Cardinals` Clark for more than three months with a thumb injury.
They are healthy this year, and so is the offensive production they have provided their teams. After Sunday`s games, Leonard was hitting .335 with 12 home runs and 34 runs batted in, Guerrero was hitting .341 with 15 homers and 45 RBIs, and Clark had a .319 average with 17 homers and 57 RBIs.
”You can look back and say what didn`t happen,” said Milwaukee General Manager Harry Dalton, discussing absences caused by injury, ”but you can`t say what might have happened.”
No, nobody can say that Leonard, Guerrero and Clark would have provided in 1986 the same type of lusty hitting they have in 1987. But all three have been productive players and it would not be unreasonable to assume that had they been healthy last season, they would have made a significant impact on their teams–and perhaps on the pennant races.
Injuries are unpredictable, yet predictable. No one knows who is going to be hurt when, but everyone knows they`ll happen. The fewer the injuries, especially to key players, the better the chance a team has to win. Or to put it the opposite, more correct way, the more injuries a team has, the less chance it has to win.
This season was not very old before teams began suffering crippling injuries. In the first two weeks, for example, St. Louis lost Tony Pena, one of the best catchers in the league, with a broken thumb and John Tudor, their No. 1 pitcher, with a broken leg.
In their third game of the season, the Montreal Expos lost Hubie Brooks, their good-hitting shortstop, with a fractured wrist. Last year, he suffered torn thumb ligaments when he was batting .340 and missed the last two months. The Cubs and the Sox also suffered debilitating injuries–the Sox when Harold Baines had to have knee surgery in the first weeks of the season and the Cubs on Sunday, when Ryne Sandberg injured his ankle in St. Louis. He could be out five weeks.
After Paul Molitor, Milwaukee`s third baseman, went on the disabled list April 30 with a pulled hamstring, no knowledgeable baseball man was surprised that the Brewers collapsed after their fantastic 13-0 start. ”He`s irreplaceable,” said Bobby Valentine, the Texas Rangers` manager. With Molitor in the lineup this season, the Brewers had a 25-8 record through Saturday; without him, they were 4-14.
Then there are the Mets. They suffered enough from having to play the first five weeks of the season without Roger McDowell, the relief pitcher who had a hernia operation, but then they were struck by a lightning-like series of injuries to their starting pitching corps.
Bob Ojeda developed an elbow problem in his third start and underwent season-ending surgery May 23. Rick Aguilera`s right elbow wouldn`t let him pitch May 26, and four days later he went on the disabled list. David Cone had no problem starting May 27, but a pitched ball broke a finger and he had surgery May 29 that will keep him out at least until September.
The Mets have provided an example of what Sandy Alderson, the general manager of the Oakland A`s, calls the trickle-down effect. A team loses a No. 1 pitcher, and everybody in the rotation moves up a notch, perhaps being asked to fill roles to which they are not equal. And a new No. 5 starter must be found.
Injuries have other effects, too.
”There`s a communal letdown born out of the fact that they`ve lost a valuable team member,” said California GM Mike Port. ”Sometimes players try to do too much. It`s a well-intended thing, but they have to find a happy medium, where everybody realizes they have to do a little more but not so much where somebody is putting too much pressure on himself.”
When teams are struck with injuries, managers strike a stoic pose and talk about how injuries are part of the game and there`s no sense worrying about something over which they have no control. But as the Angels` Gene Mauch remarked, ”That`s what I say publicly.”
Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda told of one of the ways he coped with the majors` most extensive list of injuries last year (the Dodgers had players on the disabled list 16 times):
”You`ve got to make players continue to believe. You can`t let them get down. At one point I came to the ballpark every day and said we`re going to win eight in a row. I kept saying that. I don`t know why I picked eight, but we won eight in a row. And up until Aug. 5 or so, we were still involved in the race.”
Lasorda, however, experienced what Giant general manager Al Rosen meant when he said: ”When you lose one or more guys you depend on, it`s awfully tough to overcome it. You may do well for a while, but after a while, the sheer weight of the loss catches up to you.”
Milwaukee`s Dalton mentioned another factor. ”There`s an intangible there. Part of the success of a club is the continuity of the lineup. You have the same players every day, even if it`s a platoon, so people know they`re going to play. You have a collection of players playing together. Take a key man out of that collection and it changes things.”
Teams have almost no protection against injuries to key men.
”It`s impossible to have the same depth today that they had 20 or 25 years ago,” said Oakland`s Alderson. ”It`s not just economics but also the number of teams. You can`t have players of equal value to replace injured players.”
Tell the Kansas City Royals about it. Over the years they have had a key player go out regularly with injuries, and no one ever accused George Brett of faking it. In the last 11 seasons, he has missed 16 percent of the Royals`
games because of injuries to virtually every part of his body. With Brett in the lineup in that period, the Royals have a .556 winning percentage. Without him, that figure is .485.
”When George goes down, there`s a collective team sigh,” said K.C. reliever Dan Quisenberry. ”It`s like, `Now what do we do?` We do tend to climb on his back. But over the years we`ve had to get used to it. Going into a season, we hope for 140 games from him. This year, we`re thinking if we have him for 100 games, that would make the pitchers happy. We`re not a bad team without him, but we`ve jumped on his back for years and we`re comfortable there.”
