In a baseball world where years of double-digit inflation have pushed salaries and franchise values to amazing heights, perhaps it was only a matter of time before the game itself began to bulge at the seams.

How's this for double-digit inflation? Cincinnati Reds 24, Colorado Rockies 12.

It wasn't so long ago that a double-figure run total was considered unusual. Now, it is so common that on one night recently, the winning team in every American League game scored at least 10 runs. The Cleveland Indians alone have 14 double-digit games this season.

Scoring has been on the rise throughout the 1990s, the natural result of two expansions, diluted pitching and the trend toward smaller ballparks. The 1996 season featured so many home runs that the "juiced ball" theory came back in vogue. The 1998 season was an offensive festival that included the two highest individual home run totals in history.

And, at the rate that runs are being scored and home runs are being hit in 1999, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Major-league hitters are on pace to better the game's cumulative single-season totals in virtu ally every offensive department, especially home runs. The two leagues combined last year to hit more than 5,000 homers (5,064) for the first time, an upsurge that could be explained away at least in part because of the addition of two expansion teams that hit 270 between them.

This year, the 30 major-league clubs were on pace (through Sunday) to hit 5,648 homers, which would represent an increase of 11.5 percent over 1998. The significance of that kind of change is hard to explain away as a mere statistical anomaly.

Something definitely is going on.

The same dynamics are in effect as last year, only to an even greater degree. The hitters continue to get bigger, while stadiums, the strike zone and the pool of pitching talent seem smaller than ever. The balance of power has shifted decidedly in favor of the guys carrying the sticks, and they are exercising that power with greater and greater efficiency.

Hitters like to say that when they are swinging well, the baseball looks like a grapefruit, a basketball or even a beach ball. That has to be a great feeling at a time when a beach ball would barely fit into the diminishing strike zone.

"I think there are just a lot of variables," said New York Yankees pitcher David Cone. "Historically, every recent major change has been pro-hitter. Now, the strike zone has gone from a vertical rectangle to a horizontal rectangle and I haven't seen a whole lot of high strikes."

Juiced ball?

The conspiracy buffs say that it's all part of an evil plan by Major League Baseball and the television networks to make the game more exciting by assuring that there will be plenty of runs. The strike zone certainly seems to have gotten progressively smaller over the past few years, and pitchers insist that the ball is wound a lot tighter than it was a decade or two ago.

But that was the explanation last year, when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa combined for an unheard of 136 home runs and baseball featured the highest number of 50-homer guys (four) in history. Even if all that's true, it's hard to account for the dramatic increase again this year or for that two more hitters -- Jose Canseco and Ken Griffey -- are on pace to hit more than 61 home runs.

"I think it's two things," said Orioles manager Ray Miller. "The ball is harder and the strike zone has changed."

The juiced-ball theory crops up every time there is a big offensive upsurge, but Miller and Orioles pitching coach Bruce Kison contend that it is not a mere suspicion.

"When I played, you could massage a baseball and, after a while, you could move the leather around on the ball," said Kison, whose major-league pitching career ended in 1985. "These balls, you can't budge the hide. I don't know if baseball is doing that intentionally or not. The contention is that there is no difference, but there is a difference."

Major-league officials say there has been no conscious attempt to enhance the flight of the baseball.

"I've talked to pitchers, too," said baseball commissioner Bud Selig, "but the people that make the baseballs vehemently deny that. I've talked to them and asked those same questions. They are offended by the suggestion."

Hitters blame pitchers

Predictably, the hitters don't buy into the tighter-ball theory either.

"My biggest explanation is that players are just bigger," said Yankees designated hitter Chili Davis, "and they know more about hitting. Guys who are legitimate power hitters, they go up there looking for that one pitch to hit, and you're not finding as many power pitchers in the game anymore.

"In the old days, every team had three or four guys who threw really hard. Now, even if a guy has good velocity on his fastball, he doesn't want to throw it for a strike. Some guys won't ever throw you a strike. If hitters are patient, you could walk up there with runners in scoring position almost every at-bat."

The ever-changing strike zone clearly plays a role. Major League Baseball instructed umpires to call a higher strike, which was supposed to change the shape of the strike zone, but in reality reduced the size of it.

The recommended strike zone, as Cone pointed out, went from a vertical rectangle to a horizontal rectangle, but most pitchers are reluctant to throw the ball up in the area where it was expanded. So, for all practical purposes, the zone simply diminished in width, allowing hitters to become even more selective.

Factor in the size and strength of many of today's big swingers, and there is no place in the strike zone to hide a good pitch.

"What has happened to the strike zone helps," said longtime major-league player and manager Joe Torre, "but don't ask me what has happened to the strike zone, because I don't know."

The Yankees manager isn't a conspiracy guy, but said it's not mere coincidence that a confluence of seemingly independent factors have created such an offense-oriented environment.

"We're gearing everything toward the fans," Torre said. "That's what interleague play is all about. You talk to fans, and their biggest complaint is that baseball is boring. That can only mean that we're not scoring enough runs. Not enough people see the charm in a 1-0 game."

So the strike zone gets smaller and the baseball gets harder and the scores get higher and everybody's happy, right? Well, maybe not everybody.

It isn't a lot of fun to be a pitcher right now, especially when the talent pool has been so diluted by expansion and injuries. They are up to their ears in line drives, with little relief -- either literally or figuratively -- in sight.

Giving mound a lift

To some, the solution is simple. Major League Baseball needs to make a mountain back out of a molehill: The mound, which was lowered from 15 inches to 10 after the 1968 season, needs to be raised several inches to readjust the balance of power between pitcher and hitter again.

Major-league owners lowered the mound that year because it was the hitters who were overwhelmed by the shift in favor of pitching that had begun when the strike zone was enlarged in 1963 to quell an expansion-driven scoring surge.

Detroit Tigers star Denny McLain won 31 games in 1968. St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Famer Bob Gibson finished the season with a 1.12 ERA.

Lowering the mound had a dramatic impact on offensive production, which had declined so decidedly that the combined ERA of the 20 major-league teams was -- get a load of this -- 2.99 in 1968.

The combined ERA the year after the mound was lowered rose to 3.61. Last year, it was 4.42. This year (through Sunday's games) it is 4.76 -- an increase of about 8 percent.

Raising the mound back up would, by some accounts, temper this latest offensive imbalance and maybe even have an impact on the recent epidemic of pitching injuries.

"I would definitely start there," said Cone. "It would be the least invasive change, because pitchers can easily adjust and hitters don't have to learn a new strike zone. I think it should be looked into."

Selig said last week that a rule change of that magnitude is unlikely soon, because baseball owners are hesitant to add to the long list of major changes that have taken place over the past six years.

"I have some concerns about [the upsurge in scoring]," Selig said, "but we're not going to do a lot of artificial things that would just exacerbate the problem. We feel these are cyclical changes and that it's up to the individual teams to improve the quality of their pitching."

That could change, however, if the run glut reaches the point of absurdity.

"I do think baseball needs to raise the mound," said the Orioles' Miller, "if just for the health of the pitchers. The lower the mound, the more perfect a pitcher's mechanics have to be. But I don't think the powers that be in baseball want to do that, because I think they want to see a lot of offense.

"When you're paying millions of dollars for free-agent pitchers and when pitchers like Kerry Wood are blowing out their arms, that's one thing [raising the mound] you can do. I certainly don't want to use that soft Cuban baseball."

The offensive explosion is a complicated issue that is affected by factors as disparate as the density of the wood in certain brands of bats to the tightness of the seams on the baseball to the impact of run production on television ratings.

"There is a significant difference, and it has been creeping into the game for the last four years," said Kison. "Anybody who's been around the game recognizes that the baseball is harder than it was.

"You can talk strike zone. You can talk expansion. Those are all factors that are being discussed about what's going on. But there's definitely something going on."

The juiced baseball has always been a popular culprit, but using a harder ball has its advantages.

"There's an upside to that," said Torre, laughing. "It's easier to sign."

Offensive explosion

..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 1999 ..... 1998 ..... 1997 ..... 1996 ..... 1995

AL runs per game ..... ..... 10.6 ...... 10.0 ....... 9.9 ........ 10.8 ....... 10.1

NL runs per game ..... ..... 10.2 ...... 9.2 ......... 9.2 ........ 9.4 ......... 9.3

AL home runs/game ...... 2.4 ......... 2.2 ......... 2.2 ........ 2.4 ......... 2.1

NL home runs/game ...... 2.3 ......... 2.0 ......... 1.9 ........ 2.0 ......... 1.9

AL total home runs* ......... 2,708 .... 2,499 .... 2,477 ... 2,742 ..... 2,164

NL total home runs* ......... 2,940 .... 2,565 .... 2,163 ... 2,220 ..... 1,917

AL ERA ........ .......... ............ 4.94 ...... 4.65 ....... 4.56 ..... 4.99 ....... 4.71

NL ERA ........ .......... ............ 4.57 ...... 4.23 ....... 4.20 ..... 4.21 ....... 4.18

AL batting avg. ...... ............ .274 ...... .271 ....... .271 ..... .277 ....... .270

NL batting avg. ...... ............ .270 ...... .262 ....... .263 ..... .262 ....... .263

AL slugging pct. .... ............. .440 ...... .432 ....... .428 ...... .445 ...... .427

NL slugging pct. .... ............. .433 ...... .410 ....... .410 ...... .408 ...... .408

AL on-base pct. .... .............. .347 ...... .340 ....... .340 ...... .350 ...... .344

NL on-base pct. .... .............. .344 ...... .331 ....... .333 ...... .330 ....... .331

* -- Projected full-season totals based on totals through Sunday.

Source: Stats Inc.

Pub Date: 6/22/99