October  11, 1991, Metro Edition

SECTION: Sports; Dan Barreiro; Pg. 1C
LENGTH: 1048 words
HEADLINE: Erickson remains a mystery man
BYLINE: Dan Barreiro; Staff Writer

 BODY:
   It was a nice throwaway line back when Scott Erickson said it: "I'd rather pitch in the World Series than blow it out now." The date was July 2, when nobody knew the extent of Erickson's arm problems and nobody knew if the Twins were for real.

    And now here the Twins are, and here he is, his once-tender arm no longer blown out, starting Game 3 of the American League Championship Series tonight. You can call it the rise, fall and (maybe) the rise of Erickson. The national media discovered him during his stunning first half. The national media wrote:
"Whatever happened to Scotty Erickson?" when he fell off the face of the Earth in the second half.

    Now, the Twins are in the playoffs, and Erickson is giving the national media a refresher course. Once again, they are finding out what the Twin Cities have known for a while: He likes to wear his socks low, listens to the Doors and calls his mother the night before he pitches. "It started when I left home and
went to Arizona," he said. "I call her the night before every game, and she wishes me good luck. Those two words are the only two I need to hear."

    By all accounts, Erickson listens to Mom and confides in her. This is good to know because it might be time to give Stephanie Erickson a call. There is still more than a bit of mystery in this kid, who won 20 games in his first full season in the majors. Not only do we still not know who he is, we still don't know what kind of pitcher he will be. Can he be the overpowering thrower - with the 91-mile-per-hour fastball - who can simply blow people away inning by inning? Or will he have to be the crafty pitcher - with the 86-mph fastball - who will have to continue to learn how to pace himself and mix up his pitches?

    These are fairly intriguing questions, especially when you consider that even on the day before Game 3, the kid and his manager do not agree on the answers. This was Tom Kelly during yesterday's news conference: "I think he's learned he has to pitch. At the beginning of the season he was throwing 90 and 91, he was having an easy time when he let loose at 90 or 91. Since he got back, he's been at 85 or 86 - that's going to be his range - and he's had to learn to keep the ball down in the strike zone, use his breaking ball, changeup. That's what he's had to learn."

    It seemed to make sense until a few moments later, when Erickson walked into the interview room. For most of the session, his answers came right out of the Crash Davis cliche handbook. Crash was the grizzled veteran, played by Kevin Costner, who dispensed advice to the wild and crazy kid pitcher in "Bull Durham." Crash believed in using your basic safe cliches to keep the media at arm's length.

    Can you tell us a little about your success against the Jays? "I basically just try to keep the ball down," Erickson said.  Any of their hitters present special problems? "No, I pretty much treat 'em all the same."

    This is pretty much how things went, until somebody mentioned what Kelly had said about Erickson having to learn to live with becoming an 85-mph pitcher. Crash's cliche handbook went up in smoke. "I don't see it that way," Erickson said. "I don't think he's seen me long enough to make that good of an evaluation. . . . I just try to throw as hard as I can and hopefully it will be a strike. I think the velocity is back up there again the way it was earlier in the year."

    So there you have it. T.K. suggests Erickson has to wake up and face reality, that the kid can't expect to throw as hard as he did all the time, and that the proof is the 15 days he spent on the disabled list and the few more weeks he spent trying to right himself. Erickson says he's back to throwing as hard as he was.

    At some point soon, this juicy little debate will have to be settled. And how it is done might have a lot to say about what kind of starting rotation the Twins have in years to come. For whatever it's worth, Erickson's designated catcher says the kid should listen to his manager.

    "I don't care what (Erickson) tells you, I know what is going on with him," Junior Ortiz said. "T.K. is right. That's the style of pitcher he has to be. What (Erickson) doesn't know is how much more I call the breaking pitches now. In the first half of the season, when he went 3-1 or 3-2, I call for the fastball all the time. Now I call the breaking pitches, the slider.  He thinks he's throwing the same, but he's not throwing as many fastballs because I'm not calling as many. Scotty just doesn't like to admit he's doing anything different."

    After Erickson basically blew away Kelly's point on his development as a pitcher, the kid returned to the cliche handbook. Until, that is, someone asked him about another comment from Kelly. "His composure is better," Kelly had said. "Last year, if he gave up two runs and 12 hits, he would really get upset about giving up so many hits, even if some of them were ground balls that just got through. It would bother him, even though he would just give up two runs. And the next time he would try to throw harder and he would throw it all over the place."

    Once again, Erickson disagreed. "I don't think so," he said. "If you're giving up ground balls, you're still doing your job. If you give up line drives, that's when you're worried."

    Good to see these two gentlemen are on the same wavelength on so many things.

    Ortiz smiled when he heard Kelly's comment and Erickson's reply to it. "T.K. is right about that, too," he said. "He's much better about this now, but last year, he would get mad if he gave up cheap hits. He would get so mad, it was like he wanted to use everything he had in one inning, instead of thinking about keeping it going for eight or nine."

    It is funny that Junior should put it this way. One member of the Twins organization, in a moment of whimsy, threw out a wild possibility back when Erickson was struggling. Considering Erickson's aggressive all-or-nothing attitude and his arm problems, could the kid be best suited to a closer role
someday?

    For now, we know this much: He's a 20-game winner, and he's starting Game 3 of the ALCS. But Erickson's future remains a bit of a mystery.