Sierra's determination pays with chance to help new team

GREG JOHNS

Originally published Monday, April 1, 2002

SEATTLE -- It's the first page of a new book. The opening credits of a highly anticipated movie. The first line of a Broadway play.

Opening Day.

Ruben Sierra has been through a dozen Opening Days in his big-league baseball career. It's not something he's grown tired of.

"Now the bell rings," Sierra said in the Mariners' clubhouse Sunday after the final spring fling, a 6-3 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers at Safeco Field.

Despite considerable concerns over Sierra's slow start in Arizona, the former four-time All-Star is ready to answer that bell when Seattle debuts its 2002 season this afternoon against the Chicago White Sox.

Sierra is one of the few question marks looming over this solidly built Mariner club. His spring batting average of .174 isn't going to scare anybody, but he doubled yesterday in his lone at-bat to finish up a 4-for-5 weekend at Safeco in which he launched a home run and two doubles.

Batting .096 coming out of Arizona, Sierra needed this boost. He will split time with Mark McLemore in left field this season and is being counted on to provide some ooomph to a Mariner lineup lacking big boppers.

"He's a dangerous hitter," said manager Lou Piniella, "and we need some of that because we're not really a power team."

At 36, Sierra is far from an automatic answer for Seattle's perennial left-field question. Since his glory days in Texas and Oakland from 1986-95, he bounced around with four different clubs before losing his place in the major leagues completely.

When his batting stroke went south, so did Sierra. He played a year with an independent Atlantic City minor league team, then started a season in the Mexican League with Cancun before re-signing with the Rangers' minor-league system in 2000.

It wasn't until last season, after nearly three years out of the major leagues, that he got the call back to the bigs. His 23 home runs and 67 RBIs in 344 at-bats with Texas opened the Mariners' eyes.

"We'd be very happy getting similar numbers to what he put up last year with Texas," said Piniella.

That seemed questionable this spring when Sierra struggled out of the gate. A sore hamstring hampered his efforts, as did a history of poor spring starts.

"I was worried," acknowledged Sierra, "because I'd never had that type of injury and I wasn't feeling comfortable. But I feel good now. It's a different story now."

The powerfully built switch-hitter could prove to be a boon or bust for the M's. He ran into trouble with Joe Torre in New York when the Yankee manager said he didn't fit into the Yankees' team-oriented approach in 1996. But more troubling was the loss of the smooth swing that helped him average 23 home runs and 101 RBIs in his first eight seasons.

"I got too big, too strong," Sierra said. "I wasn't swinging the bat as well and my numbers started going down."

Piniella saw the problem from afar.

"He bulked up so much it slowed his bat speed," said the Mariners manager. "His strength has always been getting through the fastball and they started to throw it by him."

Sierra clearly can help the Mariners if he fills the left-field void that forever has haunted the franchise.

Al Martin didn't leave the largest shoes to fill, but Sierra seemed equally shaky in his spring training efforts until this past weekend.

He knows there are doubters, but that only motivates Sierra all the more.

"Let's see what happens over the course of the year," he said. "Then you can judge whether I'm done or not."

The look in his eye said that Ruben Sierra isn't done at all.

"We've got a good nucleus here," he said, sitting in front of his new locker, one previously filled by Alex Rodriguez and Stan Javier. "There are a lot of good leaders, guys who know how to play the game. With a little bit of luck, nobody getting hurt or anything, we could go to the World Series."

Which is why Sierra is sitting now in Seattle, awaiting this particular Opening Day for this particular team.

"I went to the minor leagues because I knew I could still play," he said. "I knew I could help someone. I just needed a chance. I have a lot of baseball still in me."

Just how much, we'll find out in the coming months. The curtain rises today on that long-playing drama that is a baseball season.

And Ruben Sierra is glad he's got a part.

Greg Johns can be reached at gjohns@juno.com

The Olympian Copyright 2002

back to Mariners 2002 index