MINOR LEAGUE NOTEBOOK / STEVE KRESAL : Doug Linton Making His Pitch to Come Back From Surgery

With each pitch Doug Linton throws in triple A, he knows he is one step away from making it to the major leagues.

But each time he moves his arm forward, Linton also knows he is fortunate to be pitching at all.

This season, Linton has a 5-4 record and 3.25 earned-run average in 11 starts for the Syracuse Chiefs, the Toronto Blue Jays’ triple-A team. He has allowed 61 hits and has 49 strikeouts in 69 1/3 innings.

Although hampered somewhat by a pulled calf muscle he suffered earlier this season, Linton has been improving recently.

“I feel about 85%,” he said. “But my arm is getting stronger.”

Linton, 24, played at UC Irvine and Canyon High School, and started his minor league career in 1987 at Myrtle Beach, one of the Toronto organization’s Class-A affiliates, and had unimaginable success.

He had a 14-2 record, with 154 strikeouts and a 1.55 ERA in 122 innings, thanks mostly to a slider that people in the Blue Jay organization were already calling “a big league pitch.” Everything seemed to be going well, and by mid-August, Linton was promoted to Toronto’s double-A team in Knoxville, Tenn.

But as Linton was warming up one day in Knoxville, the dream season dissolved into a shoulder ache. The pain continued, sending him to the doctor, where it was discovered he had a tear in the rotator cuff of his right shoulder. Surgery was performed Aug. 29, 1987, and Linton missed most of the 1988 season.

Linton returned in the final six weeks of the season to pitch 27 1/3 innings at Dunedin, a class-A team in the Florida State League. He was 2-1 with a 1.63 ERA.

“At times, I was just learning to throw again and it was depressing,” Linton said. “I was thinking that maybe I should go back and get that college education . . . But then things slowly started to come back.”

Linton began last season at Dunedin, where he was 1-2 in 27 innings. He was moved to Knoxville and went 5-4 with a 2.60 ERA in 90 innings.

“It was just nice to be back throwing,” he said.

Linton further tested his arm last winter pitching for a Venezuelan team, going 5-2, including a shutout in the Caribbean World Series. But Linton did find a difference or two playing in South America.

“I’d be sitting on the bench and there would be a soldier next to it with, like, an AK-47 rifle,” he said. “Now that’s something we don’t see in the states much.”

Linton’s confidence was much improved after a strong winter, but he quickly learned another lesson in a minor league spring training game. He had given up five runs in the first two innings, when he was told by his coaches that he was relying too much on his breaking pitches.

He had three more innings to go and was allowed to throw only his fastball and changeup.

Linton retired the next nine batters.

“They say I fall in love with my slider and overuse it,” Linton said. “It showed me that I can get people out with other pitches, and anyway, I’ll need everything I’ve got if I make it up to the big club.”

Trivia time: Gary Carter, the current San Francisco Giant and former Montreal Expo and New York Met, was a football, baseball and basketball standout at Sunny Hills High School, where he graduated in 1972. But in what sport and to what college did Carter sign a letter of intent before being drafted by the Expos in 1972?

Big time prediction: In 1988, Fullerton College Coach Nick Fuscardo said freshman pitcher Alan Newman would reach the major leagues.

Two years later, Newman is playing in Class A for the Minnesota Twin team in Kenosha, Wis. But he is starting to dominate hitters the way Fuscardo predicted.

Newman, from La Habra High School, is 7-2 with a 1.60 ERA. He has allowed 51 hits in 90 innings and has 79 strikeouts. He is still battling with control though, as his 49 walks prove.

“As long as he stays healthy, he’ll get there,” Fuscardo said. “He just needs time to develop. When he was with us (in 1988), we started him slowly. At first, we let him face just a batter, then maybe two and build from there.”

Newman pitched in a team-high 21 games for Fullerton but had only 32 1/3 innings. His most impressive statistic was that opponents hit .100 (15 for 150) against him. He was 1-3 with a save and had 49 strikeouts and 34 walks.

“His ball started in the strike zone but just exploded out,” Fuscardo said. “His ball ran like a dog. He came a long way with us and has kept improving.”

Trivia answer: Carter was an All-American quarterback and signed with UCLA before deciding on a professional baseball career.