Published: July 19, 2008 09:38 pm            

Effort puts Otero among elite Appy League batters

PRINCETON — Nobody wanted Elias Otero on their youth baseball teams when he was learning the sport. If he knew then what he knows now, the situation would have been quite different.

Otero, who grew up in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, is second in the Appalachian League in batting average, at .402 going into Saturday’s game. His consecutive game hitting streak ended at 18 games last week.

“In Puerto Rico, none of the teams wanted me,” the 20-year-old Princeton Ray shortstop said via an interpreter. “I didn’t have a team to play with. So my father had to make a team so I could start playing.

“And since I noticed that nobody was showing me any love, bringing me into the team, I made a commitment to get better, so I could be here now, and show them why I should play.”

In his first year of professional baseball, in addition to his 37 hits in 92 at-bats, he has recorded team highs with 21 runs and 21 RBI, and leads the league in triples with six. He has also clouted two home runs and four doubles.

He has struck out 16 times and drawn seven bases on balls.

The 6-foot-2, 166-pound shortstop has also earned the admiration of Princeton fans with his defensive play and athletic hit-robbing reactions. He has made only four errors in 23 games.

It wasn’t always this way. As a youngster, he said, “I didn’t hit as well, I didn’t have all of the fundamentals.” He changed that by “working from Monday to Sunday, by going to the gym and working out — and focusing.

“Here I’ve got my average better because I work every day. In Puerto Rico I only worked, like, two days a week. So that’s how my batting average has gotten so high.”

His hometown, about 20 minutes from Puerto Rico’s capital, San Juan, included ballfields similar in build to Princeton’s Hunnicutt Field, he said.

The Rays coaches reinforced Otero’s strong work ethic once he reached training camp in Florida. He found it was important to be “doing the same thing every day, working hard at practice, working hard with the hitting instructor and focusing on getting better every day.”

Like many rookie-league players, he has also learned about coping with occasional injury. A hurt ankle sidelined him for a few games, but he wanted to get back in the action as soon as his healing allowed.

He said, “It still bothers me a little bit, a little bit of pain. But the feeling of wanting to play” figured in his return to the lineup.

He understands the stakes of playing every day.

“It’s good because the managers can see me playing, and watch me get better, playing every day. And also since we play every day, there’s a whole lot of at-bats. It prepares (you) for the next night.”

That hasn’t always been possible, because this year’s Princeton team features three standouts at the shortstop position — Otero, Dio Luis and baseball’s top draft choice of 2008, Tim Beckham.

Otero, a switch-hitter, occasionally fills the Rays’ designated hitter role. And the hits keep coming.

His first-inning home run on Friday night staked the Rays to a 2-0 lead in a 4-2 win over the Danville Braves.

He said he wasn’t immediately noticed by opposing pitchers, “but now, since I’ve moved up to cleanup batter, now they’ve started to pitch me a little differently.”

Being in an area where English speakers are in the overwhelming majority is “no problem,” Otero said Friday.

He appreciated having fellow infielder Burt Reynolds translate questions and answers in his interview, but he said his English skills are adequate to order food in a restaurant and cope with most daily interactions.

“I know enough that I can defend myself,” he said.

Living in Princeton is a bigger adjustment, after spending years on the edge of San Juan, which has a population of around 427,000.

He said, “I don’t want to disrespect anything, but here, it’s kind of boring (compared) to where I used to be. But at the same time, it’s good, because since it’s boring, there’s nothing to do, so I just focus more on baseball.

“If I were in Puerto Rico, I’d be playing ball, but then focusing on going out to parties or girl friends and stuff.”

As far as his baseball future goes, he said he has no timetable for moving up. “I’m just going to leave it up to the managers and the bosses,” he said. His statistics should speak volumes to them.

— Contact Tom Bone at

tbone@bdtonline.com

        

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