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The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 12

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Cincinnati, Ohio
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12
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EDITOR: GREG NOBLE, 359-1917 THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20, 1988 SECTION Lendl back in actionB-2 Celtics clinch home courtB-3 Braves beat AstrosB-4 UC signs guardB-6 Prep statisticsB-6 Sutton supports CaseyB-7 Rasmussen blanks Giants, 8-0 Tim Sullivan Esasky drives in four runs BY MICHAEL PAOLERCIO The Cincinnati Enquirer It's been a long time coming for Dennis Rasmussen and Nick Esasky. Rasmussen pitched only the second complete game shutout in his career and Esasky, breaking out of a slump, drove in four runs to lead the Reds to an 8-0 victory over San Francisco before a chilled crowd of 15,430 at Riverfront Stadium Tuesday night. Rasmusuen, 1-1, held the Giants to four hits and recorded the second shutout of the year for the Reds and their third complete games. Esasky, meanwhile, had a three-run single to break open the game in the third inning off loser Mike LaCoss, 1-1, and added his first home run of the year off Joe Price in the seventh. Writh his bullpen weary from Monday's 12-inning game, Reds manager Pete Rose was in dire need of a complete game from his starter.

"This is just what the doctor ordered," Rose said. "He threw the ball over the plate, he kept them off-stride and pitched a great ballga" "They've got some good hitters over (Please see REDS, Page B-6) mm 3 4 Ait. rkSm tmm m-n Pitchers give Davis, Clark royal treatment The ground rules are no different. Home plate is still 17 inches wide and the pitcher continues to aim at it from a slab 60 feet, six inches away. There remain 90 feet between bases and three strikes to an out.

But to its players, baseball is seldom the same game from one day to the next. For all the sport's honored traditions and historic stubbornness, its secret to long-term success lies in the ability to change. "I've had to adjust at the plate," Will Clark said in the post-midnight post-mortems of Monday's 12-inning ballgame on the riverfront. "I'm starting to see a lot more off-speed stuff. Like Eric (Davis), I'm starting to see a lot of nasty pitches the ones that are real borderline, that can go either way.

What happens is that you get pitched tough as much as you get pitched around." San Francisco's Clark and Cincinnati's Davis are two young rivals with a common complaint: They are getting too much respect and too few strikes. It is a familiar story to every young hitting star. Once you establish that you belong in the ma'jor leagues, the challenges keep changing. The price of fame usually means fewer fastballs, fewer pitches on the inside part of the plate, fewer opportunities to smash one off a seat. The guys who don't learn to adjust are said to suffer from the sophomore jinx, or worse, to have lost their drive as they start making larger bank deposits.

The truth is that most of them have changed very little. What has changed is the way they are treated. "I'm seeing a whole lot of different pitches than I've seen," Davis said after Tuesday's 8-0 victory over the Giants. "There's not a lot of times they come inside. When they do, they come way off the plate.

I'm not getting a whole lot of good pitches to hit like I did last year." His words virtually echoed what Clark Reds, Giants on TV The Reds-Giants game will be televised on Channels 5, 2 at 7:30 p.m. today. The Reds' Ron Robinson (0-1) will face Rick Reuschel (2-0) of the Giants. The Cincinnati EnquirerJohn Samora Kal Daniels makes the correct call as Eric Davis slides safely into home plate before the tag by San Francisco's Bob Melvin during the third inning of Tuesday night's game. Davis scored on Nick Esasky's single.

Looking for help up front Injuries force Bengals to find offensive-line insurance At a glance OFFENSIVE LINEMEN Current Bengals: Anthony Munoz, Max Montoya, Joe Walter, Dave Rimington, Bruce Reimers, Bruce Kozerski, Brian Bla-dos, David Douglas, Doug Aronson, Chris Thatcher and Sam Manos. Top prospects: OT Paul Gruber, Wisconsin; OT Dave Cadigan, USC; OT Eric Moore, Indiana; OT John Elliott, Michigan; Randall McDaniel, Arizona State and OT Gerald Perry, Southern. Draft Priority: Middle rounds. Turfway sued in Pik Six flap BY DAN WEBER Enquirer Contributor Cincinnati attorney Terence Moore filed a lawsuit against Turfway Park Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Covington on behalf of seven bettors who missed selecting one of six winning horses in the Florence, track's $1,673,877 Pik Six betting pool March 23.

Moore contended in the complaint that his clients were damaged through "defendant's gross negligence andor willful misrepresentation or fraud through omission," because the bettors were unable to get workout information on Irish horse Matter Of Time, the surprise winner of the seventh race. Matter of Time had not raced in the previous 74 months. According to state Rules of Racing, a horse that hasn't raced in the previous 90 days must have a published workout within the previous 20 days before starting. Moore's clients contend that they could find no workout information in The Daily Racing Form or anywhere at Turfway Park that night and thus Matter Of Time should have been scratched from the race according to state racing rules. The bettors in the suit had bet on Shearer Delight, the horse that ran second to Matter Of Time.

Turfway attorney Mark Guilfoyle, who is conducting an (Please see TURFWAY, Page B-6) This is one of a series of weeklong articles examining the top prospects leading up to the NFL draft next Sunday and Monday. Today's installment looks at the-, offensive line. BY MIKE DODD The Cincinnati Enquirer For the first time in four years, Bengals line coach Jim McNally has to go to work in the first half of the NFL draft. In the last three years, Cincinnati didn't pick an offensive lineman before the sixth round. Sunday, they'll be on the lookout for one from the third or fourth round on.

McNally said the Bengals are looking for a center-guard prospect and another who could have a shot at making the team as a back-up tackle. Concern over the injuries to Dave Rimington is one reason the center-guard need will take a higher priority. Rimington has missed four games each of the last two seasons and was never the same after suffering an ankle injury last year. Back-up David Douglas held his own for the most part and has been hitting the weights this offseason, but the Bengals want more insurance. As he looks, McNally has an eye out for a little different type of offensive lineman this time.

The Bengals have enough size, so that won't be the No. 1 prerequisite. "I'm looking for an offensive center-guard who has got enough lead in his butt to root 'em out (on the run) rather than just pull and trap but also a guy who's got some quickness," he said. One player who fits that description nicely is Kentucky's Dermontti Dawson. A 6-2, 265-pound guard who played some center at Lexington and in the (Please see BENGALS, Page B-5) Bearcats have a ball at XU, 10-4 I O's hit 11 had been saying in the visitors' clubhouse.

No fastballs, much frustration "When we were down in LA to open up the season, it seemed like if they didn't make just the perfect pitch, they were right off the plate," Clark said. "As a hitter, you look for a mistake every now and then. When you don't get a mistake every now and then, it gets real frustrating up there." Davis has fairly defined frustration in the first fortnight of the Reds' season. With an 0-for-3 Tuesday, his batting average has dwindled to .204, and he now has more walks (12) than hits (11). While walking Davis is a dangerous move he scored from first on a single by Nick Esasky Tuesday it may be less hazardous than confronting him directly.

"From what I've seen of what our pitchers have thrown him, they're really bearing down on him," Clark said. "They're pitching him real tough. He's not going to see those fastballs over the plate or hanging sliders unless somebody makes a mistake." So it is that last year's National League Player of April finds it a cruel month this spring. He is experiencing much the same sort of streak Clark endured last summer. "It was right after the All-Star break," Clark recalled.

"I went into a 2-for-22 job and just really felt bad at the plate. All I was seeing was off-speed stuff. So I said, 'Screw this. I won't even look for a fast-. ball.

I'm going to swing at anything -off "That turned it around. As soon as they saw me whacking a few curveballs the other way and pulling sliders and stuff like that, then they came back to the 'fastball." Clark completed the season hitting .308 with 35 home runs and 91 runs batted in. He finished fifth in the balloting for Most Valuable Player. Davis, who had been the most dominant player in the league in the first half of the season, finished ninth. Chink found in Davis1 armor Davis' second-half decline made you wonder if the pitchers had discovered a weakness, or if he might have been slow to recognize the new realities caused by his sudden stardom.

As he has struggled this spring, these questions linger. "I know it's just a matter of time," Davis said. "I have to make the adjustments, be patient and keep swinging until I get some good pitches to hit. "With the success that I've had the last couple of years, everybody knows what I'm capable of doing I just have to keep playing. We have a long way to go.

Hopefully they'll make some mistakes and then I'll get a chance to swing the bat. If not, we'll just roll with the punches." Faulty defense the Bearcats were charged with five errors momentarily dogged UC in the sixth. Cincinnati's fifth error was followed by catcher Tom Serey's two-run homer. But the Bearcats eased the way with two runs in the seventh and one each in the eighth and ninth innings as they pounded out 15 hits. "I had a pretty good fast ball early," said Judd Johnson, a senior from Peebles.

"The home runs were off bad pitches, but in this small park (Xavier), you get the ball up high and they'll ding it." Judd Johnson struck out eight, including three in a row in one stretch. "I was pumped up," he smiled. "But I got a little tired, too." Said Schmitz: "We moved up runners with ground outs and we scored with fly outs. We hadn't been doing that." Xavier coach Larry Redwine offered a capsule comment on why Goodwin was ineffective, although he pitched the distance. "His biggest problem was that he was about five miles an hour-under his normal velocity." The city rivals play again at 3 p.m.

today at UC. unlucky 0-13 Start equals worst in baseball history THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MILWAUKEE For the Baltimore Orioles, the agony of defeat has become the agony of repeat. The Orioles equaled a major league record Tuesday night with their 13th straight loss, a sloppy 9-5 defeat to Milwaukee. It was a night when the Orioles' bats came alive but their gloves fell apart as they made four errors that led to four unearned runs. "It's going to come together.

It's got to end," said shortstop Cal Ripken, who broke an 0-for-29 slump of his own with a homer and a single. "The key is to win some games and have some fun. It's got to end because baseball is baseball." The Orioles joined the 1904 Washington Senators and the 1920 Detroit Tigers as teams who lost their first 13 games. They could set the record with a loss in the second game of the series today. (Please see ORIOLES, Page B-4) BY BILL FORD The Cincinnati Enquirer Perhaps it was the team meeting 48 hours earlier that set the stage for the University of Cincinnati baseball team's 10-4 victory over crosstown rival Xavier Tuesday.

"We didn't play well at Louisville over the weekend," Bearcats coach Jim Schmitz remembered. "The team dominated the meeting we called when we got home. They pleaded with me not to tamper with the lineup and to let them play and have fun. I promised them that much." After two scoreless innings at Xavier, the mirth and merriment was under way. UC scored four times in the third, made it 6-0 in the fifth and coasted to victory behind left-hander Judd Johnson's six-hitter.

UC's third-inning rally started with one out when Xavier right-hander Dave Goodwin (3-5) nicked shortstop Steve Soloria with a pitch. Designated hitter K.B. Johnson singled, as did second baseman Chris Newton, filling the bases. Center fielder John Zaksek, who had a perfect day with four hits and a base on balls, delivered two runs with a double to left, and Todd Seymour doubled for two more runs. UC's Judd Johnson (5-0) was working on a no-hitter until Xavi-er's Pat Mahon homered in the fifth.

fvi' Zi oo4 eM m-n is CJndmutL. en NO-4 I Xvwf WP-J. Johnson (5-0). LP Goodwin (3-5). The Cincinnati EnquirerJohn Samora UC left-hander Judd Johnson flirted with a no-hitter through five innings then picked up the victory against Xavier Monday.

Leading batters: UC-Zaksek 4-4, 2 2B, 2 RBI; Seymour 1-4, 2B, 3 RBI; K.B. Johnson 3-5; Abbott 1-4, 1 HR, 2 RBI. XU-Mahon 1-4, 1 HR, 1 RBI; Serey 2-5, 1 HR, 2 RBI. Records: Cincinnati (13-11), Xavier (11-25). Tim Sullivan is Enquirer sports columnist.

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