Misery loves company. The Orioles may have cooled off during their frustrating three-game series against the Boston Red Sox and their first two games against the New York Yankees, but they clearly have been replaced as baseball's most disappointing team.

The Los Angeles Dodgers were swept in a three-game series by the last-place San Diego Padres and entered this weekend's important series against the rival San Francisco Giants in danger of dropping into the National League West cellar.

How can that be? This is the team that spent $105 million to add Kevin Brown to the starting rotation -- ostensibly so that the team would be configured well for the playoffs. Now, the playoffs are looking like a pipe dream.

Brown has pitched well enough, but who really thought he would give a $15 million performance? The rest of the club -- which was supposed to get an intensity transplant from the volatile Brown -- continues to play far below expectations, which has become the norm in Los Angeles.

The similarity to the Orioles' predicament is obvious. Each club signed an extremely high-priced free agent in the hope that he would light a fire under the franchise. Both clubs are in fourth place, with almost identical records. Both clubs are involved in big series with traditional rivals this weekend.

The difference is direction. The Orioles, despite losing four of their past five to the Red Sox and Yankees, have been playing very good baseball the past couple of weeks. The Dodgers appear to be digging themselves a deeper hole, though they could change that perception dramatically with a strong performance against the two teams directly ahead of them (the Giants and Rockies) during the next few days.

One thing is certain. They aren't going to get much slack from disappointed Dodgers fans. General manager Kevin Malone has no one but himself to blame for raising expectations with his admittedly lighthearted spring prediction that the Dodgers would face the New York Yankees in the World Series.

Now, it looks like he'll only be half-right.

One that got away

The Toronto Blue Jays have to wonder where they might be right now if they had re-signed veteran slugger Jose Canseco, who has led the American League in home runs for much of the season.

"What bristles me," general manager Gord Ash told reporters recently, "is the perception that we let him go that we failed to sign him."

It's a question of semantics, of course. The Blue Jays did want Canseco back, but they admit that it was difficult to figure out just what to pay him. The guy hit 46 home runs last year and entered a free-agent market in which players with less impressive numbers were going for $8 million per year or more.

"We wanted him back and Jose certainly had a willingness to return, but we were never really able to quantify our interest," Ash said.

The Jays eventually offered about the same money as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, but Canseco chose to play closer to his Florida home. He has had no reason to regret that decision, but the Blue Jays certainly do.

Mystery solved

We owe Albert Belle a cyber-apology after indicating that there was no way to contact him on his Web site.

The sullen slugger actually has two online sites, one on the World Wide Web and the other through America Online. The AOL site accepts messages from fans and includes a special area where Belle takes questions from the media. The other site (www.athletedirect.com) does not accept e-mail.

The two sites do have one thing in common -- Belle's delightful prose. He has chosen to bypass the traditional media for an unfiltered forum in which he can explain why he does what he does.

It's pretty vapid stuff, but you have to give him credit for being a cutting-edge kind of guy, even if his cybertwin, Terry Belle, is the one with his head buried in the laptop at the ballpark.

Can't wait to ask Albert about Y2K. He'll probably explain that he just missed the ball.

Cheap thrill

The Milwaukee Brewers are getting more than their money's worth from Japanese pitcher Hideo Nomo, who has re-emerged as a quality starting pitcher since he signed a $250,000 contract with the club.

Nomo is 5-1 with a 3.68 ERA in his first nine starts for the Brewers, a performance that has to have the Chicago Cubs wondering what they didn't see while he was auditioning for them at the Triple-A level.

"I'm having a good time in Milwaukee," Nomo told reporters after a victory in San Francisco on Monday. "I'm very relaxed in Milwaukee. When I go to the mound, I feel very comfortable."

Nomo and Brewers pitching coach Bill Campbell say that the veteran right-hander is doing nothing different than he did in Los Angeles or with the New York Mets, except putting the ball where he wants it.

The flip side

Of course, the Brewers also took a chance on veteran left-hander Jim Abbott, and that hasn't gone quite as well. Abbott is 1-7 with a 7.27 ERA since signing for $400,000, but he's hoping that he hangs around long enough to make a successful transition from power pitcher to finesse guy.

"It's been difficult," he said. "There's a mindset you have to change, especially when there comes a certain point in the game when you want to rear back and throw the ball as hard as you can. When you can't do that, you have to be smarter and pitch with less emotion, maybe take your foot off the accelerator a little bit."

There is a precedent. Abbott would love to emulate another hard-throwing Michigan kid who gained stardom with the California Angels only to wear out his arm. Left-hander Frank Tanana made the switch from 260-strikeout guy to solid finesse pitcher after his arm went dead in the late 1970s.

Their 'pen is mighty

The Texas Rangers can knock the cover off the ball, but they wouldn't be comfortably atop the American League West if it weren't for the outstanding performance of their bullpen.

The starting rotation was considered the club's major weakness when the season opened, but Rangers relievers have picked up the slack in a big way. They are a combined 17-3, with two of the losses coming from premier closer John Wetteland.

Tough act to follow

Who would have thought that the first non-football major professional championship to be celebrated in the Dallas/Fort Worth area would be the Stanley Cup?

Now, the pressure is on the Rangers -- Tom Hicks' other professional team -- to bring home some bacon. Hicks has made it clear that he expects the club to advance farther in the postseason than last year's first-round defeat. The success of the NHL's Dallas Stars only adds to that expectation.

On the brighter side, Hicks has proved that he will do what it takes to win. He signed big-ticket free agents Ed Belfour and Brett Hull to bring the Cup to Texas.

"There's a feeling that if it comes down to making moves at the right time, Mr. Hicks will do it," said Rangers outfielder Rusty Greer recently. "But I don't think there's any more pressure that could be added by any outside person than what the 25 guys in this clubhouse put on themselves."

Great promotion

The Devil Rays staged an original promotion called Yankee Conversion Night at Tropicana Field recently, allowing fans to trade in an item of New York Yankees paraphernalia at the gate for a Devil Rays hat.

Fans traded in 508 Yankees caps, two T-shirts, a cooler, a batting helmet and a Knicks cap.

Bonilla available

The New York Mets are trying hard to deal veteran outfielder Bobby Bonilla, but it's a tough sell, even with the club willing to eat a large chunk of the $11.8 million he still is guaranteed for this season and next.

Bonilla has struggled at the plate, feuded with his manager and re-alienated New York fans to the point where he gets booed every time he comes to the plate. Things have gotten so bad that he won't even bring his 5-year-old son to the ballpark.

"I know about New York," he told a reporter recently. "I know it can be tough if you don't produce. I knew it coming in. And I was right."

Pub Date: 6/27/99