The Games Can’t Get Any Bigger for Wright

MIAMI — A season that began at the double-A level with Jaret Wright pitching for the Akron Aeros of the Eastern League ends on the mound at Pro Player Stadium tonight when he starts Game 7 of the World Series.

“It’s been a roller-coaster ride,” Wright said Saturday night. “Just when you think you’re up, there’s a new level of up.

“I hope I can rise to the occasion again tomorrow night.”

What a thing.

The Cleveland Indians rose to the occasion by defeating the Florida Marlins, 4-1, in Game 6 Saturday night, and Manager Mike Hargrove opted for the cool aggressiveness of his 21-year-old rookie over the indecisiveness and inconsistency of veteran Charles Nagy in Game 7.

“My big concern was when we asked Jaret to pitch Game 2 [of the division series] against the Yankees,” Hargrove said. “He’s proven since then that he can handle any situation. He has tremendous will, tremendous composure.”

Wright is 3-0 with a 5.75 earned-run average in his four postseason starts, the Indians winning all of them. He is 11-3 since his emergency recall to fill the Indians’ injury breach in June.

He was seemingly unfazed by this latest assignment of all assignments.

“People asked me in the New York series if that was something I had dreamed about,” Wright said. “Well, you don’t dream about pitching in the playoffs, you dream about pitching the seventh game of the World Series.”

It is the first Game 7 since 1991, when Jack Morris of the Minnesota Twins and John Smoltz of the Atlanta Braves pitched a classic before Morris won it in 10 innings, 1-0.

Tonight’s pairing provides something of a strange conclusion to a strange Series in which Game 6 was almost as good as the previous five had been bad.

There’s the Cleveland rookie, working on three days’ rest, facing 32-year-old veteran Al Leiter, a disappointing 11-9 during the regular season, 0-1 with a 6.35 ERA in four postseason appearances and bombed in Game 2 of the Series, that miserably chilling game in which the Marlins rallied to win, 14-11, after Leiter gave up six hits and seven runs in 4 2/3 innings.

“Results-wise, it wasn’t there for me,” Leiter said, “but this time of year is all about wins. We came back to win that game and that’s all I was concerned about.

“Obviously, tomorrow’s game is the most important I’ve ever pitched, but I have to approach it as I would any other game. I’m still confident in my ability.”

Said Jim Leyland, the Florida manager:

“Al won 16 games two years ago. He wasn’t quite as good this year, but he’s an experienced guy, and I feel good about him.”

What else could Leyland do or say? Livan Hernandez threw 142 pitches two days ago. Kevin Brown drew his second Series loss Saturday night.

Both managers will have a quick hook tonight.

Hargrove had Nagy warming up in the late innings Saturday night and had already made his decision to go with Wright.

Nagy pitched tenaciously to help beat Mike Mussina and the Baltimore Orioles in Game 6 of the league championship series, but otherwise had yielded 25 hits and 13 earned runs in 22 2/3 postseason innings after a 15-11 regular season in which he was similarly inconsistent.

On Friday, Hargrove had told the Cleveland beat writers: “Charlie has to pitch like he has confidence in himself, but right now, he gives you body language that says, ‘I don’t want to be on this earth.’ He still has good stuff, but I wonder about his mental approach. He’s not aggressive enough and he tries to be too perfect.”

The concern with Wright is that he has pitched 209 innings this year, 80 more than his previous career high.

“His outing in Game 4 [he went six innings of a 10-3 victory] led us to believe he can still be effective and still has something left,” Hargrove said. “The last time he pitched on three days’ rest [in Game 5 of the Yankee series] he pitched well.”

An observer named Clyde Wright, the former Angel left-hander, was reached by phone at his Anaheim home and said his son’s pitches seem to move better when he’s a little tired.

“I just hope he feels that he doesn’t have the weight of the world on his shoulders,” Wright said. “I’ll talk to him about that, but this has been some kind of fantasy story. What more can the kid do?

“When you look at the roll he’s been on, this is the way the year had to end.”

Clyde and wife Vicki, thinking Jaret had made his last start in arctic Cleveland, weren’t sure they would be able to arrange a flight to Florida, and the senior Wright said, “I’m not sure I could watch in person anyway.”

The young pitcher said he would be calling his parents as soon as he returned to the team hotel Saturday night. What did he expect his father to tell him?

“Probably what he always does,” Wright said. “Go get ‘em. Have fun. Pitch with some hearts and guts.”

Which is what he has done during a remarkable run. He is a few months removed from Akron and only three years removed from Anaheim’s Katella High, but Wright said: “It feels like high school was 10 years ago. I feel like I belong. If I can feel like I belong for one more day, we’ll be OK.”