THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 26, 1995 TAG: 9508260525
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
When Rochester Red Wings righthander John Coppinger entered the world in El Paso, Texas, in 1974, his father immediately tagged him ``Rocky,'' and not for the most inspiring of reasons.
The story goes that Coppinger's dad thought his new son ``looked all beat up and ugly'' at birth and resembled the boxer Rocky Marciano. Thus the world had another Rocky, one with a success story, no less, that extended to Friday's 4-0 shutout of the Norfolk Tides.
Before a paid crowd of 12,070 at Harbor Park, Coppinger, with 1 2/3 innings of relief from Mike Oquist, pitched the Red Wings farther into the International League's East Division pennant race. Rochester (68-66) remained tied with Ottawa and moved to within a half-game of first-place Pawtucket as Coppinger, in his fourth Triple-A start, two-hit the Tides (81-53) into the eighth.
Both hits, an infield single and a triple, were by ex-Red Wing Alex Ochoa until Ricky Otero and Kevin Morgan singled with one out in the eighth. Oquist relieved, and Ochoa laced a shot that third baseman Kim Batiste turned into a round-the-horn double play.
Another double play, Rochester's third on a marvelous defensive evening, in the ninth sealed the Tides' fate - their fifth shutout of the season against the league-leading 17.
``Yeah, I'm surprised I'm in Triple-A,'' said Coppinger, 21, who began his first full pro season in Class A. He was bumped to Double-A in midseason then up to Rochester. Including his 2-0 mark with Rochester, he is 15-3 overall. ``I had a great spring training, and I'm having a good season, but I never saw myself being in Triple-A and having the success I'm having.''
Coppinger said his above-average fastball was his primary weapon, aside from Rochester's defense. Though Tides' shortstop Rey Ordonez made the night's most spectacular play - a chopper over second on which he tagged the bag with a pop-up slide and threw off-balance to first for a double play - Rochester leftfielder T.R. Lewis got even with a tumbling grab of Ordonez's line drive with two on to end the seventh.
``I don't understand how we didn't hit him,'' said Ochoa, who backed Coppinger in one game while at Rochester. ``We hit him hard actually, but we hit balls at people all the time.''
Tides manager Toby Harrah, however, had a theory.
``He's got a pretty good fastball, and there aren't too many good fastball hitters in this league,'' Harrah said. ``If you've got a kid with a little bit of mustard on his fastball, he's going to be successful in this league.''
Meanwhile, the lack of tangible success continued for Tides lefthander Chris Roberts (6-13), 1-8 in his last nine decisions, and for whom the game might have seemed a tedious rerun. Roberts also met a raw Triple-A rookie in his last start, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre's Mike Grace in his Triple-A debut, and dropped a 7-1 decision.
``He was better today,'' Harrah said of Roberts, who did not yield a home run for the first time in 10 starts. ``He had a little better pop on his fastball and a sharp slider. He threw about 30 pitches in the first inning, though, and that made it kind of tough for him the rest of the game.'' ILLUSTRATION: L. TODD SPENCER
Rochester's shortstop Greg Smith bare-hands a ball against the Tides
on Friday. Norfolk lost, 4-0.
BOX SCORE
STANDINGS
STATISTICS
[For a copy of the charts, see microfilm for this date.]
by CNB