Pat Hentgen: Flying Ace

For the first time in close to a decade, the Orioles have an ace whose initials are not MM and whose uniform number is not 35.

The man who will throw the first pitch of the season at Camden Yards at 3:05 in the afternoon of April 2 against the Boston Red Sox will wear a black number 41 on his back. And the chemical reaction he sparks or allows to fizzle this summer--let’s call it the pH factor--will say a great deal about how the Orioles fare.

The burden on Pat Hentgen will be immense.

First, even though he is a former Cy Young Award-winner, Hentgen is no Mike Mussina. He was a very good pitcher during the mid-1990s when he was with Toronto, but he has never worn the mantle of potential greatness that Mussina has. The tendency of people to try and compare Hentgen and Mussina will be misdirected and unfair to the new Orioles right-hander.

And because Hentgen is the only veteran starter in the Orioles’ rotation--and because he is atop the Baltimore pitching totem pole--he is expected to serve a leadership role and help coddle along his younger colleagues. Hentgen is a good teammate and the type of classy individual that major league teams like to cultivate. But he is not a natural leader.

“I don’t know where all that started,” Hentgen says when asked about his role as Father Superior on the Orioles pitching staff. “If there’s somebody on the team that wants to talk to me about something, I’m willing to do that. But I’m not the type of guy to go up to someone and tell them how to throw their pitches. There’s a fine line there. You want to help, but you don’t want to step on someone’s toes.”

Moreover, Hentgen is at a pivotal point in his career. It is difficult to predict what kind of a season he might have. Now 32, he was 15-12 with a 4.72 ERA for St Louis in 2000, but he wasn’t impressive enough to the Cardinals’ hierarchy to be invited back. Five years ago he won 20 games and the AL Cy Young Award, but since then his fastball has lost some of its velocity. Hentgen will be in the position this year of having to prove to the baseball world that he still has some mileage left in his arm. The Orioles are betting $9.6 million over the next two years that he has.

What’s more, Hentgen will have to prove to many fans that the Orioles were not foolish in hiring yet another veteran who might stand in the way of the team’s stable of young pitchers who are competing for jobs in the major league rotation.

He is one of three free agents the Orioles picked up over the winter—along with David Segui, 34, and Mike Bordick, 35—whom some observers contend are obtruding on the club’s youth movement.

One man who thinks the Orioles made a wise decision in signing Hentgen is Segui.

“He’s a great guy,” says his new teammate,“ probably one of the toughest competitors I’ve ever played with. He’s a very, very nice guy, a soft-spoken guy. But when he gets on the mound he’s a bulldog. He used to be a really, really hard thrower before. The last couple of years he’s lost a little velocity, but he knows how to pitch. He’ll give you what he’s got. He reminds me of David Cone in that way.”

Hentgen acknowledges that he no longer can count on his once sizzling fastball to get him through opposing lineups.

“It’s tough,” he concedes. “It’s definitely a transition. When I first came up, I could really challenge hitters in the zone, with a 92-, 93-, 94-mph fastball. Now it’s different But it’s not really the velocity, it’s the life on the fastball. And you have to rely on location. You’re not going to strike out as many guys.”

The key, he says, is putting the ball where he wants.

“Location is of utmost importance, whether you have velocity or not. Working with a good catcher is also important, so you can focus on throwing the ball to the glove and not have to worry about where or what to pitch. I think I’m a better pitcher than I was, a much better pitcher, but my stuff’s not the same.”

From 1993 through 1997, Hentgen won 77 games (despite two of those seasons being shortened by the players’ strike) and lost only 51. In four of those five years, he forged an ERA of less than 4.00 and pitched in at least 200 innings, despite the strike.

In the last three years, he has tapered off somewhat, going 38-34 with ERAs of 5.17, 4.79 and 4.72. He’s failed to reach 200 innings in any of those years, though he came close twice.

In fact, if Hentgen had been in the AL instead of the NL last year, he almost certainly would have exceeded 200 innings. He was plagued by the practice of NL managers removing pitchers prematurely to effect double switches. He remembers pitching well in games but still being removed for a pinch hitter. That’s the way strategy is conducted in the NL. And it’s one of the reasons he prefers pitching in the AL. Another is that he won’t have to pick up a bat anymore.

“I like the fact that I have a guy who’s a great major league hitter hitting for me,” he says of the AL’s designated hitter. “I really didn’t like hitting. I bunted almost every time I was up, unless there were two out and none on. Being in the AL for nine years, I wasn’t very confident with my hitting in the NL. I’d rather have a DH hit for me. A lot of people might say the opposite, but I prefer to get their guy out when I’m on the mound and then let a guy hit for me when we’re off the field. I’ve always been an AL guy.”

Hentgen did not approach Ruthian standards during his plate appearances with St. Louis last year. In 60 at-bats, he got eight singles. He’s still awaiting his first major league RBI.

Hentgen, who has a home in his native Michigan just outside Detroit and another in Tarpon Springs, Fla., says it will be nice to be back home in the AL, where he pitched nine of his 10 big league seasons.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he says. “You’re more comfortable with your surroundings. You know the mounds better and the backgrounds behind home plate. And most importantly, you know the hitters better.”

Perhaps it was the corresponding lack of familiarity with the NL that caused him to struggle in the early going in St. Louis last season. He went 7-6 with a 5.89 ERA during the first three months.

“I got off to a slow start,” Hentgen acknowledges. “I don’t know why. I just had a couple of rough games, and that leads to a high ERA, and that leads to a bad month.”

He was far more effective in the second half—at least during the regular season. His one playoff appearance, a start against the Mets on October 16, was a disaster. He lasted but 3-2/3 innings, giving up seven hits and five walks and seven runs and taking a loss. “I was terrible,” he says. “There’s not a whole lot to say about it. I was just grinding out there. I didn’t have good stuff.”

So what kind of pitcher will the Orioles see in Hentgen this year—the one who floundered in his playoff outing against the Mets, or the one who was named the AL’s top pitcher five years ago?

Hentgen says much will depend on his control. His ratio of walks to innings jumped to over four last year, the highest of his career. Whether that was because of pitching in a different league won’t be discovered until he takes the mound for the Orioles. Hentgen is unlikely to match his top season in Toronto this year, but he can still be an effective major league pitcher. He also should be able to eat up innings for a staff that will need someone to do just that.

Before shoulder tendinitis kept him from pitching in two games in August of 1998, he had run up a streak of 183 consecutive starts during which he had not missed a turn in the rotation. He hasn’t missed a start since and has never been on the DL.

He has tried to build up his arm strength this winter, in part to avoid the type of slow start he experienced in St. Louis last year. Hentgen says he has increased the amount of throwing he has done this winter and lifted more weights. During the time he has spent at his home in Florida, he goes to his old high school and throws there with several other major leaguers, including former Orioles Mike Timlin and Anthony Telford. Timlin and Hentgen are old friends from their days pitching together in Toronto (and in St. Louis late last year), and despite the troubles Timlin experienced with the Orioles, he told Hentgen Baltimore was a great place to play.

Hentgen also says he was convinced that Baltimore “must be a pretty nice place to play” after hearing that B. J. Surhoff broke down after learning last July that he had been traded from the Orioles to the first place Atlanta Braves in the NL East.

Hentgen already has some history with the Orioles, although it might have gone unnoticed by anyone but the pitcher himself. His major league debut was against Baltimore in relief. He faced Orioles catcher Bob Melvin in a 1991 relief appearance (in the same month, coincidentally, when Mussina was making his maiden big league appearance). He struck out Melvin on the last of five straight fastballs he threw. Then, he yielded a double to Billy Ripken. On April 10 of the next year, Hentgen picked up his first victory in relief of Jimmy Key, beating the Orioles at Camden Yards just a few games after the park was opened.

Now he’s hoping he can wrap a few more victories at Camden Yards, but this time for the Orioles.

“I’m excited about playing for the Orioles,” he says. “I think we’re going to be better than people think.”