Part-time role requires Long adjustment period

By: BRIAN HIRO - Staff Writer | Friday, March 26, 2004 10:17 PM PST ∞

TEMPE, Ariz. ---- He left a team that has gone to the playoffs four straight years, a team for which he once played 456 straight games. He now is penciled in for a reserve role on a club that has finished in last place three of the past four seasons.

It doesn't sound like a recipe for happiness. Yet outfielder Terrence Long is happy to be a Padre, which just goes to show how dramatically his once-promising situation in Oakland had eroded.

"I'm having a lot of fun, and I think that's because of the guys around here," Long said. "They've made me feel at home, so it's been a lot easier to adjust than I thought."

By the end of last season, Long wasn't having any fun and he no longer had a home in the Athletics' organization.

Few could have foreseen such a fate back in 2000, when Long placed second to Seattle's Kazuhiro Sasaki in the American League Rookie of the Year voting. He paced all first-year players in runs (104), hits (168), doubles (34), RBIs (80) and total bases (264). Along with the starting trio of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito, Long was considered a cornerstone of Oakland's youth revival.

Even while playing in every game the next two seasons, however, Long was beginning to fall out of favor as his production slipped into a steady decline. He hit .240 in 2002, down 43 points from the previous year. Last June, his run of consecutive games ended ---- its the second longest streak in Oakland history ---- and injury wasn't the culprit.

He subsequently entered into a platoon with outfield prospect Eric Byrnes, finishing with a .245 average and a career-low 486 at-bats.

A season of brewing discontent and intermittent clashes with manager Ken Macha came to a head in the playoffs. After whiffing with the bases loaded for the final out in a 4-3 loss to Boston in Game 5 of the American League division series, Long claimed that Macha shook everyone's hand but his in the despondent clubhouse afterward. With his postseason tirade against the manager, he essentially wrote his ticket out of town.

"I had come to the conclusion that it was time to go," Long said. "It wasn't about the numbers or anything. There was just a lot of other stuff going on that didn't go on before. I think a lot of guys probably felt the way I felt, but they wouldn't have said the things I said.

"That's what makes me different from a lot of people. If I don't like something I'm going to tell you, especially if I've been one of the guys who's been out there every day for the last four years. There's no way I could have gone back and played there this year."

The feeling was apparently mutual as the 28-year-old Long, with two years left on his four-year contract, was shipped to San Diego with catcher Ramon Hernandez in the November trade for center fielder Mark Kotsay. Long never really was an option to start for the Padres ---- they pursued free-agent center fielders Kenny Lofton and Mike Cameron before signing Jay Payton in January ---- but they envision him as a viable backup at all three outfield positions.

"That's a pretty good fourth outfielder to have," Padres manager Bruce Bochy said. "He can play left, right or center. He's a good left-handed hitter. He'll get playing time. If something happens, we think we've got an experienced everyday guy waiting to play."

That something happened earlier this month when Payton strained his right hamstring, affording Long the bulk of the spring starts in center. If by some reason Payton isn't ready for Opening Day, Long would be the guy.

"That's a nice luxury to have," Payton said. "If we have (an outfielder) go down for a few weeks, we have a pretty good player to put out there while they're gone."

Besides his general state of unhappiness, Long attributes his struggles over the past two seasons (a .242 cumulative average vs. a .285 mark in his first two years) to bad habits at the plate. He said he tried to pull too many pitches for home runs instead of spraying the ball to all fields. He worked throughout the offseason on hitting the opposite way.

"Sometimes a change of scenery can help," Bochy said. "He's swinging the bat well now. Hopefully, he gets back to the player that he was. Part of it will be accepting what we're asking him to do, and he's done that."

Contact staff writer Brian Hiro at b_hiro@hotmail.com.