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Show Despite recent Giants' troubles, Downs optimistic about season 7 -!' Jif ?:f F .ii mm mmmmm:m)ty:mmmw-- ,;m,. : ; JpPM: immsMxi: ... '.::::sb::. .. 4w 1 1 -j - ' t - By TOM HARALDSEN Sports Editor SALT LAKE CITY Kelly Downs appeared relaxed last Tuesday Tues-day night, home during the major league All-Star break for the first time in seven years. He joined with his close friend and former San Francisco Giant teammate Jim Gott, who's now the mainstay of the Pittsburgh Pirates' bullpen, at an open house at Salt Lake's Canyon Racquet Club. Gott is one of three new owners buying the club. But Kelly was actually somewhat some-what nervous, because following our interview, he was scheduled to begin a three-hour session of meeting meet-ing club members, and conducting television interviews, as part of the open house. By now most sports fans in Davis County are well aware of Kelly's career achievements. The former all-state athlete from View- Omont High (class of 1979) signed with the Phillies after leaving high " school. He spent three-plus years with the Philadelphia organization before being traded to the Giants in September, 1984. After two seasons with San Francisco's AAA team in Phoenix, Kelly was called up in 1986, posting post-ing an 8-5 record with the Giants, an ERA of 3.42, and strong performances per-formances throughout the '86 season. sea-son. It also brought Kelly in touch with Giants' manager Roger Craig, who taught him to throw the split-finger split-finger fastball. Last year began fast for the Cen-terville Cen-terville resident, as Kelly was 8-4 in 18 starts, including three shutouts, shut-outs, at the All-Star break. The second half of the season was somewhat frustrating, however, as the Giants obtained Rick Reuschel in August during the pennant- stretch drive, and Kelly was moved to the bullpen. He finished the season 12-9 with one save, and pitched only once in the League Championship Series with St. Louis, going one and one-third scoreless innings in game seven. Though San Francisco lost in seven games to the Cardinals, the Giants entered this season the prohibitive pro-hibitive favorite in the National League West. But San Francisco has started slowly, hovering around .500 for most of the first half until a recent surge just before the break moved the Giants to within 2Vi games of the Dodgers. "The hardest part is that, when we look at the people we have and the teams in our division, there really isn't any reason we shouldn't win it," Kelly offered. He said much of the preseason hype has taken its toll on the Giants, who have received solid pitching but have lacked hitting most of the first half. Kelly has often found a lack of scoring support in his career, but there are signs that that is changing. chang-ing. He won his last four starts before be-fore the break to bring his record to 8-7, including three shutouts. More importantly, the Giants' bats are starting to respond. "In my last four starts, we've scored 53 runs," he recalled, including in-cluding a team-record 21 runs in a 21-2 clubbing of St. Louis at Candlestick Cand-lestick on July 9. He said the Giants' optimism remains re-mains high. "We've overcome some adversity adver-sity this year, such as Jose Uribe's wife's death, and several injuries. The pitching has been good, we lead the league in double plays, and now we're getting some hits." A recent series with Pittsburgh at home illustrates the Giants' frustrations frus-trations at the plate this season. Though San Francisco won two of the three games, they had just 11 hits in the series. Pitching has certainly cer-tainly been the key thus far. As for Kelly himself, he feels "I've thrown the ball pretty well so far. I've had two or three real bad games, but I feel good about the first half (of the season)." The Giants find themselves about ab-out where they were a year ago, when they trailed the Cincinnati Reds by VA at the break. But the Reds and Houston Astros were far back this year at the break, and the National League West may well become a two-team race entering August and September. Kelly feels the Giants need both Candy Maldonado and Kevin Mitchell to begin hitting better behind be-hind All-Star Will Clark. He credits off-season acquisition Brett Butler with a good portion of San Francisco's Francis-co's success this year, saying "Brett's scored once or twice in almost every game we've won." He's viewing baseball as a business busi-ness now, as he "makes a living for my wife and family," and he feels the pressure and stress that professional profes-sional sports afford. Still, Kelly is happy to be where he is, doing what he's doing. "The West Coast is a wonderful change of scenery for me ," he said . "We train within a day's drive of Utah. We play our home games within a day's drive of here. I never feel too far removed from home." Ironically, Kelly and Jim Gott were reunited last weekend after the All-Star break during a series between the teams in Pittsburgh. They'd love to meet each other in the League Championship series this fall, and with both teams making mak-ing strong moves the week before the break, it could happen. Pittsburgh Pirate reliever Jim Gott, left, visited with his close friend Kelly Downs of Centerville, a starter with the San Francisco Giants, during the All-Star break last week. Photo by Sports Editor Tom Harldsen. |
