Season struggle signals changes

Nick Christensen

Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2004 | 10:07 a.m.

Before the season, the biggest question around this year's Las Vegas 51s was how badly the team would be gutted by callups.

With a strong Triple-A roster and the parent club Los Angeles Dodgers' anemic offense relatively unchanged and best-in-baseball pitching staff notably different, the expectations for the 51s in 2004 were for midseason callups to help the struggling Dodgers.

Except the Dodgers didn't struggle. And the 51s did.

Las Vegas didn't reach .500 after its opening homestand, and injuries and early slumps hurt the offense. On nights when the pitching was good, the offense wasn't there. When the 51s scored 11 runs, the pitching staff gave up 12.

And on the last day of the season, with Las Vegas 10 games under .500 and playing a Salt Lake team 31 games under, the players left in town -- major-league callups were made immediately before Monday's game -- were swinging away.

One hour, 51 minutes after the first pitch was thrown, the final out was recorded as the 51s wrapped up their shortest nine-inning game of the season with a 5-1 victory.

After the major league rosters expanded on Sept. 1, the Dodgers called up catcher Tom Wilson and reliever Mike Venafro. Monday morning, outfielder Chin-Feng Chen, infielder Jose Flores, shortstop Antonio Perez, and second baseman Joe Thurston were called up. The Dodgers also activated pitcher Edwin Jackson from a rehabilitation assignment.

Las Vegas' 67-76 record was the worst in the team's four-year affiliation with the Dodgers, and the worst since the 1997 Stars, then affiliated with San Diego, went 56-85.

But 51s manager Terry Kennedy was quick to point out that despite the poor record, things weren't all bad for this year's 51s. Las Vegas was 26-24 after the mid-July All Star break. The 51s won 11 of their last 17 games, mostly against down-and-out teams such as Salt Lake, Fresno, and an Edmonton Trappers squad playing its last homestand in Canada.

"I think this year was constructive," Kennedy said. "I think we all would have liked to have had a better record, but we did improve."

Outfielder Jason Repko was called up from Jacksonville in July, and hit .312 with 41 RBIs in that stretch. Edwin Jackson and Joel Hanrahan combined for a 13-11 record with ERAs of 5.86 and 5.05 respectively after spending last year at Double-A, and T.J. Mathews, who signed late in the year after playing for an independent league team in Connecticut, had five saves with a 4.50 ERA.

Some new faces provided power offensively to Las Vegas, particularly first baseman Luis Garcia. Garcia hit .314 with 32 home runs, tied for third-best in franchise history. Perez, acquired shortly before the season in a trade with Tampa Bay, hit only .296 but compiled 88 RBIs and was 23-for-35 in stolen base attempts. Brian Myrow, acquired from the New York Yankees for pitcher Tanyon Sturtze, finished the season with a team-leading .362 batting average.

But the offense had holes -- mainly due to injury. John Barnes sat out most of the first half of the season, but came back to hit .346 in 64 games. Seemingly every time Cody Ross got his hot streak going, he'd get injured.

The Las Vegas bullpen was a revolving door in the early part of the season, and the team combined for just 27 saves on the year.

More than anything, though, it was the year of the swan song for remaining members of 2002's Las Vegas team that went 85-59. Thurston, who led the PCL with a .334 batting average that year, is out of options in the final year of his contract. He hit .284 in what will likely be his final season with the 51s. He holds the franchise career record in triples (22) and is six short of the career mark of 448 hits.

Chen owns the franchise career records in total bases (688), home runs (72) and strikeouts (344).

But the old going out makes room for new talent. Along with the return of Repko and Myrow, prospects such as pitcher Greg Miller, first baseman James Loney, starter Chad Billingsley, and third baseman Willy Aybar are possibilities for Las Vegas in 2005.

Of that group, Miller is the highlight. Before a season-ending injury in spring training, he was rated the Dodgers' second-best prospect by Baseball America.