Snakebitten Dye shrugs off weight of Athletics - MLB - CBSSports.com Live Scores, Stats, Schedules

Miller's camping trip

PHOENIX -- Say, didn't you used to be....

Jermaine Dye?

"Feel good, feel great," Dye says.


A's manager Ken Macha (left) needs Jermaine Dye doing some damage in the cleanup spot.(AP)

After the broken leg from which you spent much of 2002 recovering?

"Everything's good."

After the knee cartilage you tore last April? And after the separated shoulder suffered when you rammed into Anaheim catcher Bengie Molina last September?

"No problem," Dye says.

Good. Because once upon a time, Dye was marked for greatness. Once upon a time, he put up big numbers, won a Gold Glove, made an All-Star team.

Oh, and he signed what was then the biggest contract in Oakland franchise history (three years, $32 million), until Eric Chavez blew past him this spring.

Since then, he has been mugged by injuries and, after he hung up some late numbers in 2002, the Athletics got nothing out of him in 2003.

And that must change. Now.

Because this season, assuming Oakland's vaunted rotation pitches as expected and assuming the team remains reasonably healthy, Dye is the key to the Athletics winning a third consecutive AL West title.

Period.

"You know what? You don't want to sit here and put pressure on a guy, but I really believe a lot of our season depends on him this year," Mark Mulder, one of Oakland's three aces, says. "He hasn't had the numbers he's accustomed to the past two years. And he's so talented."

Miguel Tejada, the 2002 American League Most Valuable Player, became the latest run producer to leave Oakland when he signed with Baltimore during the winter. First Jason Giambi, then Johnny Damon, now Tejada. The Athletics' offense gets more and more watered down.

Last summer, the Oakland's pitching staff led the AL with a 3.63 ERA. But the rest of the Swingin' A's weren't exactly, uh, swingin'. Offensively, Oakland ranked tied for 14th with a .254 team batting average. The Athletics' 768 runs scored ranked 11th in the AL.

"Jermaine is huge," says Chavez, Oakland's all-world third baseman. "If everybody does what they're expected to do, the pitchers and whatnot, if he gets clicking, he's definitely going to be the difference-maker for us.

"People have just kind of forgotten about what kind of player he is."

Well, people have had some help forgetting. Last summer, Dye batted .172 with four home runs and 20 RBI -- career lows across the board.

While appearing in only 65 games, Dye's batting average was the lowest in the majors among players with at least 200 at-bats. (Philadelphia's David Bell, who batted .195, a robust 23 points higher than Dye, was next.)

Dye's .172 average also was the lowest in Oakland history among Athletics with a minimum of 200 at-bats, breaking the .186 set by Larry Murray in 1979, and it was the second-lowest in franchise history (1901-2003) to Lou Limmer's .159 for the 1951 Philadelphia Athletics.

Oddly, though, Dye seems nonplussed by all of this. Despite the fact that it doesn't exactly take Columbo to deduce that the Athletics must receive more from their right fielder, in Dye's eyes, he isn't necessarily a major key to Oakland's season.

"Nope, not at all," he says. "I feel like if I'm healthy and if I go have fun, if I'm in there every day, I feel with my ability, my numbers will be there.

"If you have one guy do it all, the other teams won't let that guy beat them. If everybody does what they're capable of, we'll be OK. You look at last year, and there was a period where Chavez and Tejada struggled at the same time and we still won the division. That tells you that others did the job."

Dye, in fact, shows remarkably little guilt for taking all of that money -- his $11.6 million salary last season represented 23 percent of Oakland's $50 million player payroll -- and contributing little for it.

Not that the guy should be wearing a sackcloth and doing penance, because injuries happen. But you'd like to see a little more fire. And, perhaps, maybe not being so quick to point out that it wasn't all peaches and cream for Chavez and Tejada, either.

Does Dye feel like he's got something to prove this season?

"Nope, not at all," he says. "I'm going into my eighth year. I put up numbers for four consecutive years. I've been on the All-Star team. There's nothing to prove. I feel like if I'm healthy, I'll be OK."

Do you even care that most of the last two seasons have been washouts and your contributions haven't been close to what people hoped for despite being the highest paid Athletic, Jermaine? Isn't it frustrating, at least?

"I'm not like that," he says. "I take the good with the bad, and the bad with the good. Injuries are going to happen. You never know what's going to happen. You enjoy what you're doing, and you get back to it as soon as you can."

Whether it's a month from now, a year from now or even two years from now, apparently.

"What are you going to do about it?" Dye says. "You can't do anything about it."

Maybe the attitude will serve him well this season. Maybe since he isn't all worked up about things, he won't be over-eager in the batter's box. He certainly looks like the Dye of old this spring, which is great news for the Athletics. Especially since, swinging in the No. 4 hole, his performance also could affect Chavez before him hitting third.

"To me, the difference between Jermaine right now and last year is that he has that aggressive approach at the plate again," Chavez says. "When he broke his leg, to me, he was on the defensive side at the plate. He's an aggressive hitter."

The four-year span that so far is the extent of Dye's career occurred from 1999, when he had a breakout season in Kansas City, batting .294 with 27 homers and 119 RBI, to 2002, when his season essentially didn't start until after the All-Star break thanks to the broken leg suffered in the 2001 playoffs. Still, in 131 games, he batted .252 with 24 homers and 86 RBI.

During that four-year span, Dye averaged 28 home runs and 107 RBI a season.

"I definitely haven't forgotten what kind of player he was," Chavez says. "Those injuries ... don't forget, two years ago he still ended up at 24 and 86."

Dye's manager, unwilling to add wattage to the spotlight, refuses to list the one-time slugger as the key to Oakland's success this season.

"We've got a lot of new pieces here," Ken Macha says. "I'm not putting the weight of the world on anybody's shoulders. There are a lot of new pieces.

"Bobby Kielty could have a career year. Mark Kotsay could have a career year. Eric Chavez is in great shape.

"I just want these guys to go play. If our pitching is good like it was last year ... we didn't score many runs and we still won 96 games. Our defense was tight. Certainly, every out we could get, we got. That's the way you win baseball games."

You also win them by giving your pitchers room to make a mistake or two, by not expecting them to be perfect every time out. Mulder, Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, Mark Redman and Rich Harden certainly form one of the game's top rotations. But nobody knows whether veteran Arthur Rhodes can handle the closer's role, and even with a sensational rotation, you've still got to score to win.

Kielty, obtained from Toronto over the winter, and Kotsay, obtained from San Diego, will help. Rookie Bobby Crosby will replace Tejada. Oakland expects him to make all of the defensive plays and not worry about offense. That will come, the A's have told Crosby. Be patient. Catch the ball and we'll give you time to learn the league and get your bat going.

Really, the A's need a combination of Crosby and Dye to replace Tejada, who knocked in 106 runs last season. If Crosby plays defense and Dye produces some runs, that will help cover for Tejada's defection.

"I kind of look at it that way," Macha says. "Miggy had 100 RBIs last year and Jermaine had 20. With those guys together (Dye and Crosby), we should get 120 runs."

Says Chavez: "Numbers-wise, I think he's going to fill that hole. Obviously there are intangibles at shortstop (that Tejada provided), but numbers-wise, I think Jermaine can have a better year."

So far, Dye is healthy and having a big spring. The idea now is to rack up the at-bats and see as many pitches as possible.

Oh, and to keep his body in one piece.

He does those things for these final two weeks of the spring, and there's a reasonable chance he will return from the land of the missing this season. And the benefits to Oakland will be immense.