A Healthy Beltre Ends Who’s-on-Third Talk

VERO BEACH, Fla. — It wasn’t an Olympic year, but the Dodgers fielded a 7x.225 relay team last season.

In Adrian Beltre’s absence for the first 36 games of 2001, seven third basemen--Chris Donnels, Jeff Reboulet, Dave Hansen, Phil Hiatt, Hiram Bocachica, Jeff Branson and Tim Bogar--combined to hit .225 with one home run and 12 runs batted in.

And you wonder why Dodger Manager Jim Tracy is excited to see Beltre in camp this spring, in excellent shape and primed to join the team for its first full-squad workout today?

“This is my first spring training where I can look at my everyday third baseman and see a picture of health,” Tracy said Tuesday. “I don’t think I ever got an opportunity to see that last year.”

Beltre, 22, was a wreck last winter, losing 30 pounds while battling complications from a botched appendectomy in the Dominican Republic. He had a second surgery March 12 to close a wound in his right lower abdomen.

Beltre opened the season on the disabled list and returned in mid-May, but it was another three months before he began to remotely resemble the Beltre who batted .290 with 20 homers and 85 RBIs in 2000. Beltre, who batted .203 in May, batted .304 in August and finished with a .265 average, 13 home runs and 60 RBIs.

“It’s a whole different story this year,” Beltre said. “I was in the hospital at this time last year. I couldn’t eat, walk, throw, hit. Now, it’s so exciting to be here. I can talk, play around, jump, swing, hit. I’m looking forward to being healthy all season.”

So are the Dodgers, who will need a lot more offense from Beltre and first baseman Eric Karros, who battled back problems last season, if they are to overcome the loss of left fielder Gary Sheffield, the 36-homer, 100-RBI slugger who was traded to Atlanta in January.

“No doubt, Sheffield was a great hitter; there’s not a lot of right-handed hitters like him,” Beltre said. “But it’s not all about one hitter, it’s about a team. If we’re all healthy and do the little things, we should be OK.”

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Right-hander Andy Ashby cleared another significant hurdle Tuesday in his recovery from surgery to repair a torn flexor muscle in his elbow. Of the 50 pitches in his bullpen workout, Ashby threw about 10 curveballs, the first time he had snapped off breaking pitches during his rehabilitation.

“I was a little timid at first, but as I went on I was OK,” Ashby said. “I really wanted to see how I was going to feel, because throwing a curve can really bite [on your elbow]. With each step you take, throwing the cutter, the split-fingered fastball, you’re wondering how you’re going to feel. After throwing three or four curves, I realized it felt pretty good. I’m definitely going in the right direction.”

Dodger ace Kevin Brown, who is recovering from the same surgery Ashby had, threw 80 times Tuesday, 40 long toss and 40 off a flat surface, for the second consecutive day. Brown experienced no problems or discomfort and will not throw today.

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Hideo Nomo’s split-fingered fastball already has baffled a few Dodger catchers, who have had trouble handling the Japanese right-hander’s dirt-diving pitch in early bullpen sessions, and Tracy has taken notice.

“A lot of people question why he returned to the success [in 2001] that he had earlier in his career, and my opinion is because the depth of his splitter is back, and that was something he lost over time,” Tracy said of Nomo, who was 12-10 with a 4.50 earned-run average for Boston in 2001 and led the American League with 220 strikeouts.

“That’s a very difficult pitch to lay off when it’s going right and an easy pitch to hit when you hang it.”