Minor setbacks

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, April 27, 2000 | 10:21 a.m.

The good news for Las Vegas Stars fans is that the team finally has the star-studded lineup it was supposed to have back on opening day before a rash of injuries in San Diego caused a mass defection to the major league club.

The bad news for San Diego Padres fans is that three of their hottest prospects -- catcher Ben Davis, outfielder Mike Darr and utilityman John Roskos -- are all back in triple-A following less-than-stellar major league callups.

The trio went a combined 3-for-44 during their Padres stints.

Davis went just 1-for-16 with seven strikeouts. Darr, considered the possible heir to future Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn's position, was 1-for-13 with five strikeouts. Roskos, the star of spring camp for San Diego, went just 1-for-15 with six strikeouts.

Still, San Diego brass apparently remains high on the potential of all three.

"Sometimes we forget how hard it is to hit major league pitching, especially for a young player," San Diego manager Bruce Bochy said.

"Who knows? Maybe next time is the time," Stars manager Duane Espy said after Roskos, Darr and Davis each went 2-for-4 in Wednesday night's 9-5 victory over Calgary at Cashman Field. "For me, these guys are all guys who are going to be big league players, who have big league talent. I'm hoping we can pull that out of them here."

Although another former Star, Wiki Gonzalez, has passed up the 23-year-old Davis on his way to the big leagues, Padres GM Kevin Towers remains bullish on Davis.

"I don't know how many times I've said this ... but Ben is going to be a solid big league player," Towers told the San Diego Union-Tribune recently. "You've got to remember, he's still a kid. Sandy Alomar (Jr.) went through this, too, for a few years, playing behind Benito Santiago and Mark Parent. It wasn't that Mark Parent was a better player than Sandy Alomar, but Sandy needed at-bats."

On Roskos, Towers said: "We know he can hit."

And Darr?

"It's kind of like with Ben: Darr needs to get down there (in Las Vegas) and get going," Bochy said. "It's fair to say he didn't get into a groove."

The Padres have already approached Davis with the idea of playing winter ball in either the Dominican Republic or Venezuela this year, something that helped Gonzalez's development.

* MYSTERY AILMENT: The medical condition of former Star outfielder Ruben Rivera continues to baffle San Diego Padres personnel.

Rivera has been undergoing a variety of tests in San Diego since going on the disabled list last week complaining of pain in his left wrist and right ankle during the team's series in Montreal on April 8-9.

It was first thought that Rivera's wrist injury was caused by soreness from getting hit by a pitch. When the injury continued to worsen, Padres' trainers thought Rivera might be suffering from early rheumatoid arthritis. Ditto his ankle, which unexplainedly ballooned.

Now San Diego's medical staff believe the highly touted outfielder prospect, who was once compared to Mickey Mantle in his New York Yankee minor league days, has an infection of some sort.

"His white blood cell count is elevated, which means he has some sort of infection," assistant trainer Jim Daniel told the San Diego Union-Tribune, adding "I think the doctors are as mystified as we are."

* MONAHAN TO JOIN STARS: Veteran outfielder Shane Monahan, who played parts of each of the last two seasons with the Seattle Mariners, is expected to sign a contract with the Stars today and could possibly see action in tonight's game.

"To me it's a done deal," Espy said. "He wouldn't have hung out here tonight if he wasn't serious about playing here."

The 25-year-old Monahan was a two-time All-American at Clemson. He hit .256 with seven home runs and 32 RBIs in 108 games with the Mariners' triple-A team in Tacoma in 1999.

* GAME RECAP: John Roskos' eighth-inning single through a drawn-in infield drove in Mike Darr and broke a 5-5 tie to lead the Las Vegas Stars (10-7) to a 9-5 victory over Calgary (7-13) before an announced crowd of 2,345 at Cashman Field on Wednesday night.

* UP NEXT: The Stars continue their five-game series with the Calgary Cannons with a 7:05 game tonight at Cashman Field. Right-hander Stan Spencer (2-0, 1.59) will start for Las Vegas and be opposed by Calgary right-hander Bronswell Patrick (1-1, 6.52).