'Nuw' center of attention

Braves centerfielder Andruw Jones can do it all: hit, catch, throw. Oh, and he hustles, too.

By DAMIAN CRISTODERO

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 17, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- Braves centerfielder Andruw Jones hit two home runs Sunday that traveled about a combined 800 feet.

But it was what he did over a mere 90 feet between home and first that, to Atlanta batting coach Merv Rettenmund, was really the measure of the player.

With one out and the bases loaded in the ninth inning, Jones bounced an 0-and-2 pitch to Devil Rays second baseman Miguel Cairo, who went to shortstop Ozzie Guillen for the forceout.

Jones, head down and arms pumping, beat the relay to first, allowing Javy Lopez to score the final run in the Braves' 6-4 victory at Tropicana Field.

"What that tells you is he has a lot of fun doing it," Rettenmund said. "This kid plays hard day in and day out. He's not going to jog to first. If he jogs to first, he has a bad leg."

"The home runs don't count at that point," Jones said. "It's a 0-0 ballgame right there. You have two strikes; you have to put the ball in play. You can't go up there and hack. Just put it in play and go from there."

Jones is going to the top of his game.

With 25 homers and 58 RBI, the 23-year-old should surpass his highs of 31 and 90, set in 1998. His .308 batting average is 48 points higher than his career average.

No big mystery, Rettenmund said. It's a matter of Jones being able to adjust and extend his hands to attack a pitch wherever it is thrown, a lesson the first-year All-Star said he worked on before the game.

"He's not trying to be a rightfield hitter," Rettenmund said.

The coach does instruct Jones to go to the opposite way during batting practice, "but that's just to get his hands working," Rettenmund said.

Jones' hands worked just fine his first two at-bats despite a bruised left forearm sustained Saturday night during a wall-banging, home-run-robbing catch off Baltimore's Brady Anderson.

Jones hit a two-run homer over the centerfield wall in the third and homered to left-center in the fifth off Esteban Yan.

Both were off fastballs, but the second was a Rettenmund special. Yan's pitch ran up and in on Jones, who still got around and sent the ball well past the 370-foot mark.

"You've just got to look for your pitch," said Jones, who has three two-homer games this season, 10 in his career. "If you're a fastball hitter and they leave the fastball over the plate, you're going to hit it."

Jones also is benefiting from batting up in the order. The only major-leaguer to play every inning this season, Jones has hit second in 74 games. Preceding hitters such as Chipper Jones and Andres Galarraga, he is seeing better pitches than last season, when he toiled in the bottom of the order.

"He's certainly come into his own as a ballplayer," third baseman Chipper Jones said. "He's getting a sense of what it takes to be a professional hitter. He's taking some pitches he used to flail at, and if a pitcher makes a mistake, he crunches 'em."

Said Rettenmund: "He's one of the top players in the game today."

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.

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