Thursday, June 06, 2002
Rijo accepts bullpen role
By JOE KAY
AP Sports Writer
Jose Rijo hasn't been the same since he threw 110 pitches on May 3, and he's heading to the bullpen hoping to figure out what's wrong.
The Reds dropped Rijo from the rotation while he was in the Dominican Republic for the funeral of his grandfather, who died Saturday night. The demotion didn't surprise him.
“My last outing was poor,” Rijo said Wednesday. “I made mistakes, my slider wasn't sharp. If they want to do that, I agree. If they think I have a better chance to help the team in the bullpen, I'll do that.”
Rijo got hit hard last Saturday, when he gave up seven runs in five innings of an 8-4 loss to Atlanta.
Rijo, 37, returned to the Reds as a reliever last August, overcoming five elbow operations and a six-year layoff. He won a spot in the bullpen during spring training, then got a chance to realize his dream and start in the majors again.
He did well initially, but has struggled since going seven innings in a 6-1 loss in San Francisco on May 3. He hasn't been able to throw more than four or five innings before fading.
“Don't forget I haven't pitched this many innings in seven years,” said Rijo, who had his first reconstructive elbow operation in 1995. “I think it was just so many pitches in one day, then my arm had a hard time catching up without any rest. I'd pitch five good innings, then my arm was going. There's got to be something to that.”
Reds manager Bob Boone is noncommittal about how long Rijo will stay in the bullpen. Asked what lies in his future, Rijo said, “If you want to talk about today, that's my future.”
He spent the last few days remembering a grandfather who was a guiding force in his life. Antonio Acosta, 98, raised Rijo's family along with his own — eight children in all — on the meager salary of a police officer in the Dominican.
“My father abandoned me at 4, and he raised the whole family,” Rijo said. “I remember he used to carry a big old bag of clothes and boots he was selling on the side to support a big family. Imagine what he went through.”
Acosta was a baseball fan, but didn't like to fly and never saw Rijo pitch in the majors in person. Without Acosta, the 1990 World Series MVP might not have made it to the big leagues.
“We were so poor that I used to wait for him to come home from work at 10 o'clock to eat dinner with him, because my portion wasn't enough,” Rijo said. “I had been in the baseball stadium and the basketball courts for the day and I needed some food. It was amazing. I always got half of his every night.
“He'd buy me everything. He did it for me and his other five kids and my two little brothers on that salary, so you know how much courage he has and how big of a heart he has.”
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Rijo accepts bullpen role
