Crosby Quietly Coming Into His Own
by Neal Hayes, Contra Costa Times
June 30, 2004 Dropping that fly ball against the Minnesota Twins may have been the best thing Bobby Crosby ever did.
He didn't see it that way at the time, of course.
It was a blooper to his right, a ball he raced after only to watch it glance off his glove. It was a ball he should've caught, and it allowed the Minnesota Twins to score the winning run in the 10th inning on May 8.
The A's rookie shortstop felt like saving everybody the trouble and driving himself directly to Triple-A Sacramento. He took it that hard. Grounding into a double play in the eighth with runners on first and third with nobody out only added to his misery. In the span of two innings, his worst fears were confirmed: He didn't belong in the major leagues.
"That was the point where I almost said, '(Expletive) it all,'" he said.
We bring up Crosby's darkest hour not because he had two hits and two RBI, including the game-winner in the A's 5-4 win over the division rival Anaheim Angels on Tuesday night at Network Associates Coliseum.
We mention it to illustrate how the leap from Triple-A to the big leagues has left more than one can't-miss prospect dangling from his fingertips. Baseball is a difficult game, even for the gifted. It can crawl inside your head and take up housekeeping, especially if you're a rookie.
But ever since that day, Crosby has made playing the game look easy, surprisingly easy for a rookie replacing a former MVP on a contending team while playing the game's most demanding position.
He had done so quietly. So quietly, in fact, that few realize that his numbers through the first 75 games of the season (.279, 10 home runs, 32 RBI) compare favorably to the numbers Miguel Tejada put up through 75 games last season (.231, 13, 54). Crosby even has two fewer errors.
Tejada was mired in an early-season slump last season and he still had more RBI, true, but he was also hitting third instead of sixth or lower.
The point is that the rookie with the unenviable task of replacing Tejada has done so more capably than we could have imagined thus far.
"We had no doubts that not only would he be a good major-league player but he would be a great major-league player," general manager Billy Beane said. "It was not a matter of if but of when."
More telling are statistical comparisons of Crosby's projected totals for his rookie season and the numbers Tejada and third baseman Eric Chavez posted as rookies. Crosby's projected totals (.279, 22, 69) are significantly higher than Tejada's and Chavez's rookie numbers.
That's pretty good company, especially when you consider that Crosby, who had the advantage of playing in college and the USA National Team, is more polished defensively than either Chavez or Tejada were.
"He's a lot more advanced than Miggy and I were when we got here," Chavez said. "He also came into a situation where this team is expected to win. When Miggy and I came up, we weren't expected to win. It was just throw your gloves out there and see what happens."
Sometimes it seems as if everybody in the A's organization has been assigned the task of boosting Crosby's confidence. When he struck out in a critical situation on Opening Night, Jermaine Dye immediately put an arm around his shoulders and told him to approach every at-bat as if it were spring training.
Eric Karros and several other veterans consoled him after his miserable day against the Twins. When you're a superstar, nobody remembers that you struggled during the first month of your rookie season, Karros told him. Manager Ken Macha called him into his office for a pep talk. The next day Beane reminded him that nothing had changed. He would continue to be the starting shortstop.
It convinced Crosby not to worry about making an occasional error or going 0-for-4 anymore. He continues to work with infield coach Ron Washington, who stresses making the routine play. A dead-pull hitter in the minors, he was given a steady diet of breaking balls and pitches on the outside corner until he proved he could handle them.
He is now taking those pitches the other way, at times with encouraging power, and now pitchers have started coming back inside, meaning he has more opportunities to pull the ball again. His double and single against the Angels were both hit down the third-base line.
Dropping that fly ball might be the best thing that ever happened to him, all right. He's hitting .331 with seven homers and 20 RBI since.
"When you're hitting .200 and just made a big error and the two most important people in the organization say, 'You're the guy,' it helps," he said. "A lot of people would've given up on me and sent me down." |
