Brown would fit today’s game
“When Kevin Brown turned his back to you,” Merv Rettenmund was saying this week, “you were in trouble.”
Brown has come to mind lately, in the wake of October baseball grabbing San Diego to a degree it hadn’t since the pitcher left the Padres almost 22 years ago.
When Brown began his delivery, he turned away from the hitter, revealing the 27 on the back of his jersey.
The spin called to mind former Red Sox ace Luis Tiant.
Only Brown brought a lot more heat than El Tiante.
It’s only a guess, but Brown, if transported from 1998 to today, would’ve pitched deep into this year’s World Series games against either the Dodgers or Rays.
That’s a strong statement. Hitting lineups today have much more power than in any other era. Pitch velocity is up. The balls are juiced. Bats are harder, not bearing the seam prints that they did in 1998. Bullpens are deeper, allowing managers to lift the starter sooner and create favorable matchups across longer stretches. So in comparison, Brown’s pitches would’ve been less dazzling than today.
Yet Brown flung any of four pitches opponents described as “nasty” or words that can’t be printed here.
Scouts awarded high grades to all four: A “turbo” sinker Tony Gwynn called impossible to handle; a fourseam fastball Brown used to overwhelm Astros hitters opposite Hall of Fame lefty Randy Johnson in the playoffs; a wipeout slider hitters said resembled both fastballs; and a splitter that served as a change-up.
Brown had more “pitch stuff ” than any Padres pitcher, ever.
He was, however, more pitcher than thrower. As a Padre, he ended up fifth in fewest walks per nine innings. His 2.51 ERA between 19962000, in which he averaged 34 starts and 242 innings per season, ranked second among regulars of that span behind only Pedro Martinez, per Hall of Fame analyst Dan Rosenheck.
His stamina stunned Rettenmund, a hitting coach who went to seven World Series teams. Between of a few of his 35 starts, he asked Padre manager Bruce Bochy to use him in relief. He held his pitches deep into games and through three playoff series that October. He totaled nearly 300 innings.
Brown led the Padres to the 1998 World Series, which is what the late Kevin Towers had in mind when he dealt the Marlins a top prospect in Derrek Lee to get Brown in the final year of his contract.
Brown pitched to a 2.38 ERA across 257 innings, while leading the big leagues in “FIP” ERA, a better measure, perhaps, because it strips out defensive support.
Against favored Houston, launching the Padres toward their first playoff victory since 1984, he buzzed fastballs by Astros hitters who were geared up for his sinker. He won Game 2 of the League Championship Series at Atlanta nearly by himself. Not only did he shut out the favored Braves on three hits opposite that year’s Cy Young winner, Hall of Famer Tom Glavine, he singled twice and scored.
Forgotten in the World Series sweep the Padres suffered against the winningest of Yankees teams is that when Brown exited Game 1 with one out in the seventh inning, the Padres led by three runs (Donne Wall promptly allowed a three-run homer to Chuck Knoblauch).
A second-inning line drive off Brown’s lower leg, said Rettenmund, led to more challenges than outsiders knew. “When he got back to the dugout,” Rettenmund said, “his shoe was full of blood. The toenail was gone.”
In Mission Valley four days later, Brown took the ball on short rest.
He allowed only one run through seven innings before faltering in the eighth. The Padres never scored against rested Yankees starter Andy Pettitte and two relievers.
Brown retired Joe Girardi on a groundout, ending the eighth inning. Then he walked off before a crowd of 65,427.
The pitch, his 118th, was his final throw for the Padres.
When he returned to Mission Valley in 1999, he wore a Dodgers uniform, having joined Los Angeles on a contract worth more than $100 million.
Many Padres fans viewed him as a villain. Nor was Padres owner John Moores in a welcoming mood. The software tycoon and Brown, per the pitcher’s agent, Scott Boras, had clashed the previous offseason in failed contract negotiations at a steak house. “I hope we clean his clock,” Moores told reporters in his Texas twang, in advance of Brown facing the Padres. When Brown showed up, Padres game-entertainment staff taunted him with the Pink Floyd song “Money” on stadium speakers. It was an accusation of greed.
As for the Padres’ financial investment in Brown, at $4.935 million, it was indisputably a great bargain by any measure. For both Moores and the franchise.
Days after the 1998 World Series, local voters approved a ballpark measure. The subsidy would provide the bulk of the funding, more than $400 million in today’s dollars, toward the downtown ballpark. Money is a sports term for a clutch performer who handled high expectations well. Will other “money” performers lead the Padres back to the World Series?