Espy hopes long layoff didn’t cool off hot bats

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, April 13, 2000 | 10:57 a.m.

Home opener

The Las Vegas Stars play their first home series of the season this weekend at Cashman Field:

The Las Vegas Stars have been on a real hitting tear their last three games.

In a span of 23 innings, the Stars amassed 29 runs, 39 hits and 16 doubles in sweeping the final three games at Calgary.

Now the question is: Just how hot will those bats be after a long layoff?

When the Stars host New Orleans on Friday night at 7:05 p.m. at Cashman Field in their 2000 home opener, the team will have had just one practice since defeating Calgary, 7-1, on Sunday afternoon.

The Stars (3-1) had their entire series at Edmonton postponed earlier in the week because of snow. They flew back to Las Vegas on Tuesday and then held a three-hour workout on Wednesday afternoon at Cashman Field.

Manager Duane Espy gave his squad today off, in part because Cashman Field was unavailable because a TV commercial was to be filmed there.

"Four days off is not that big of a deal," Espy said. "But we were awfully hot when this layoff started. My only concern is will we be swinging the bats like we did? We'll just have to wait and see."

The Stars will also be missing two of their biggest names that broke camp with them in Peoria, Ariz.

Star catching prospect Ben Davis was called up by the parent San Diego Padres last week when starting catcher Carlos Hernandez suffered a pulled groin muscle. And red-hot utilityman John Roskos, who went 6-for-9 with two home runs and six RBIs in the Stars' doubleheader sweep of the Cannons on Saturday, was called up by the Padres on Tuesday.

"Ben didn't play any games with us, so that's not really relevant," Espy said. "But Roskos ... any time you have a guy that hot it's hard to replace him. But I really have a lot of faith in the guys we have. It just wasn't a John Roskos show up there. We played good defense, we pitched well and we had (13) doubles in that doubleheader. When you're doing that, it's not just one guy."