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Miller's camping trip
CLEARWATER, Fla. -- So here we are near the beach, where life is just one big Fleetwood Mac song for Pat Burrell this spring. Don't stop thinkin' about tomorrow. Not after last year's brutal season, and not with what his bat means to a team with major aspirations to snatch what would be only its second World Series title in 100 years.
Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone.
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| Pat Burrell is doing his best this spring to try and regain his lost stroke.(AP) |
Fact is, yesterday is so gone that Burrell vowed not to speak of it again this spring after reliving its horrors with a small group of reporters in a conference room at the Philadelphia Phillies' spanking new facility Monday morning.
But you know what that means.
If he gets off to a fast start this April, the memory of his .209 batting average, 21 homers and 64 RBI in 2003 will disappear more quickly than vinyl albums.
If he starts slowly, however ... whoa, right now that's simply too ugly to contemplate.
The Phillies handed the kid a six-year, $50 million contract before last season. That's how important they think he is to their future. And why not? In a star-making year in 2002, Burrell batted .282, clobbered 37 homers and drove home 116 runs.
Yes, the Phillies acquired closer Billy Wagner over the winter, juiced their rotation by acquiring Eric Milton and deepened their bullpen with Tim Worrell and Roberto Hernandez.
But if Burrell doesn't bounce back and cause enough racket to resume his position in the lineup between Bobby Abreu and Jim Thome, a dangerous right-hander splitting up two serious-swinging lefties, then all the king's horses and all the king's men might not be able to put these Phillies back together again.
Burrell is that important.
"If he feels confident and puts good passes on the ball, he's going to have good numbers," manager Larry Bowa said. "Is he going to hit .300? Probably not. That would be great, but I don't think you can say he's going to hit .300 or .310.
"The numbers are home runs and RBI for him. He's a run-producer. I think he's going to be a big-time run-producer."
There still is no fully explaining what happened to Burrell last year. Lord knows, he and the Phillies' staff launched a more exhaustive investigation than anything seen on CSI each week. Somehow, he got himself lost in the batter's box, lost to the point where he eventually stood so far away from the plate that it looked like a mirage.
Which it became for him.
"It really was special for me when I would get that big hit every month or so," a noticeably relaxed Burrell said wryly.
He doesn't mean to take it lightly. He doesn't mean to give the impression that he doesn't care. Because he does. Lots.
He got advice from everybody but Dear Abby and Dr. Ruth last year, and though people were well-meaning and all, that became part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
"It wasn't malicious, but everybody tried to help," Bowa said. "Before you know it, you're getting advice from fans writing letters, teammates, opponents. Everybody wants to help."
A golf pro wrote and invited Burrell to his range, suggesting it might help him. And that was just for starters.
Receiving little help from Burrell and spotty work from their bullpen, the Phillies, of course, faded down the stretch like a suntan in January. Losing nine of 10 during an August stretch was critical, and then losing seven of eight to finish the season, including three in a row in Florida, was fatal.
It never is only one man's fault when the wheels come off. But let's just say that, among the fingerprints found at the scene, Burrell's were prevalent.
"It's hard to say one guy is going to make or break a season, but I realize if I played up to my caliber, it might have been different," Burrell said.
He couldn't shake the guilt for a long while after, even during a week's vacation in Hawaii before going home for the winter to Arizona.
"It bothered me for a while," he said. "I was disappointed with the way things went. The more time you get away from it, you take yourself through what happened."
Eventually, Burrell had help with his review. Charlie Manuel, the hitting guru for Thome and others who currently works for the Phillies, visited Arizona in November. The two played golf and talked.
"I just listened to him, got to know him," Manuel said.
And as he did, he asked Burrell to think about a couple of things in his stance: Keeping his bat lower -- not wrapping the barrel back around his head -- and plate coverage. Move a little closer to the plate, Manuel suggested.
When the two reconvened here at the Phillies facility on Feb. 1, along with Bowa, the man who hit so well he was known as "Pat the Bat" at the University of Miami, looked as if he spent the winter doing just what Manuel suggested. A week later, hitting coach Greg Gross joined them and, so far, so good.
"I spent 3 1/3 to 4 weeks in Arizona on my own, hitting off of a tee and hitting soft toss," Burrell said. "Doing repetition to get my stroke back where I wanted it."
Viewed from just about any perspective, Burrell's 2003 numbers are as warped as the images in a funhouse mirror. He was batting an embarrassing .192 at the All-Star break. He made a "rousing" comeback after, batting .234. He batted .198 against lefties, .212 against right-handers. He batted .203 with runners aboard, .154 with the bases loaded.
There were times last year, Manuel said, when he honestly didn't think Burrell could reach an outside strike, as far away from the plate was he standing.
This spring, granted, it's only against batting practice pitchers so far, but Burrell appears to have a plan. The days of he and Thome bashing pitches to see what kind of distance they could get are over. The days of Burrell methodically working pitches the other way and up the middle, those are in. Burrell is working on using the middle part of the field, and Manuel is preaching slow feet and quick hands to him.
"The games are going to tell," Manuel said. "As long as he learns to control his adrenaline, he's going to be fine ... As long as he has good plate coverage on the outside part of the plate without falling over, he's going to be fine."
He isn't the first prodigy ever to backslide like that. Heck, he isn't the first Phillie to have a season like that. Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt, in his first full season in the majors, batted .196 in 1973.
"It was tough," Bowa, a teammate of Schmidt's then, said. "One thing about Schmidty, and if he did he hid it very well, he never let the people around him know he wasn't confident."
As Burrell said: "Sometimes you've just gotta look in the mirror and say, 'You know what? It was a bad season. Things just didn't click.'"
So he moves along, refusing to look back, only thinking about tomorrow.
For both Burrell and the Phillies, it'll soon be here.
Miller's previous camp stops: Red Sox in Fort Myers | Yankees in Tampa | Astros in Kissimmee