Commentary: Dr. Matlack has remedy for staff ills

Friday, April 5, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

IT WAS ALL too familiar for Tigers fans at the game. Seven runs up with only two innings to play, yet the outcome remained in the hands of a pitching staff that is so inept no lead is safe.

A couple of Oakland Athletics' rallies later, Thursday afternoon's American League game at Cashman Field was 9-9 and headed into extra innings. It eventually took 15 innings to resolve and Detroit had a 10-9 victory, yet the pitchers' inability to hang on to a seven-run lead detracted from the win and limited the team's satisfaction at upping its early season record to 2-2.

Dr. Matlack ... paging Dr. Jon Matlack.

"I wish I had more psychological training," the Tigers' pitching coach said, his duties having expanded to where he's one-part teacher, one-part counselor for a team that hasn't had a decent staff this decade. "Sometimes when the wheels come off, things snowball in the wrong direction. But no matter how horrendous a day one of our pitchers has had, I've got to find a way to make him see the positives and come out of the experience with something he can use to his advantage in the future."

First in line to see the good doctor after Thursday's game was Randy Veres, a right-handed reliever acquired this spring to be the team's bullpen stopper. But his spring training stats were awful and he was the primary culprit as the A's got back in the game with six runs in the eighth.

But Veres' troubles are no different than others on the Detroit staff. Four games into the 1996 season the Tigers have been touched for 39 runs.

"It's time-consuming and to do it right isn't an overnight thing," Matlack said of turning his 11 pitchers into accomplished major leaguers. "You have to take baby steps. Even then, there's no doubt we're going to have setbacks."

Detroit, which is in Las Vegas through Sunday to play the displaced A's, has fielded the same-type team for several years. The Tigers can always hit, but their pitching is habitually atrocious.

It's an acute problem, with a few new faces every year but similar results. Last season's 5.49 staff ERA was next to last in the AL and this season is off to a similar level of incompetence.

Matlack, a pleasant 46-year-old man who pitched for 13 seasons in the major leagues, doesn't have much to work with. The Tigers don't have anyone who won as many as 10 games last season and virtually everyone on the staff has tried and failed in previous trips to the majors.

Aside from adding to his credentials as an informal psychologist, Matlack promises to stay on top of his troops.

"I'm not going to go away," he said. "I'll bend, but I won't break. I'm going to be there and be right in their faces. Hopefully I can explain their mistakes to them and get them corrected. If not, if they're incapable of changing, we'll make the changes for them."

So the doctor is in. He sees the problem, knows the nemesis, and feels he has the remedy. The prescription is hard work.

But if the ability isn't there ... if even a seven-run cushion isn't enough ... it'll be another long season in Detroit.