Restovich hurt, but not out of hope yet

Jim Souhan
Star Tribune

FORT MYERS, FLA. -- Right up there with "Matthew LeCroy endorses pilates video" and "Terry Ryan becomes president of hair club for men" is this man-bites-dog stunner: "Minnesota Boy Slips on Ice."

"Yeah, everyone has something to say about that one," said Rochester native Michael Restovich. "If I hadn't gotten hurt, it would be real funny. The closer I get to 100 percent, the funnier it's going to get."

Restovich hasn't spent much of his time in a Twins uniform smiling.

In 1997, the Twins chose him in the second round out of Rochester Mayo High. It looked like a good marriage -- a nice-guy local hero with a big bat playing for a team that, at the time, was desperate for box-office draws and power production.

Then the Twins started winning and accumulating outfielders the way Starbucks gathers coffee beans, and here is Restovich, in 2005, thinking this is his best chance to make the team out of spring training.

It's also his last chance. Restovich is out of options. If the Twins cut him, he'll go on waivers and surely be lost to another team.

So the one spring he's all but guaranteed a spot on the roster, he shows up with a sore right shoulder, having slipped and broken his collarbone.

"I was at my brother's in November, and we were grilling out," Restovich said. "I was carrying a tray, walking down the stairs to the patio, and my foot hit some ice.

"It wasn't that I slipped. It was how I landed. My shoulder just caved in."

You would think this would be a tale of frustration, but after spending three years in Class AAA, Restovich is so tired of being described as "Future right fielder" that he wouldn't mind this year's baseball card reading, "One-armed fifth outfielder and Gardy's beer fetcher."

Playing in the minors isn't exactly shoveling coal in Hades, but for a baseball player of ambition, it feels something like that.

That's why, last spring, the soft-spoken Restovich told Twins manager Ron Gardenhire he objected to getting cut.

"I appreciated that, because, you know, he was right," Gardenhire said. "He did play well up here, and he did play as well or better than other people, but he just didn't fit our roster."

He didn't fit well in the minors, either.

In 2002, Restovich hit .286 with 29 homers and 98 RBI at Class AAA, then hit his first big-league homer when called up in September.

Sent down the next spring, he hit .275 with 16 homers and 72 RBI in the minors, and followed that by hitting .247 with 20 homers and 62 RBI last year.

"I'm a streak hitter, and it seemed every time I got my bat going, I'd get called up to the majors," Restovich said. "I'm not going to cry about that. It's the dream of millions of people to play in the majors, and that's where I want to be. But I never got my bat going, and, yes, it was frustrating."

In the past five years, the Twins have tried Matt Lawton, Chad Allen, John Barnes, Brian Buchanan, Lew Ford, Bobby Kielty, Dustan Mohr, Jason Kubel, Mike Ryan and Jacque Jones in right field.

This year, the job is Jones'. Next year, it will probably belong to Jason Kubel. If Restovich makes this team, he'll back up both corner positions, DH, and be eligible for emergency duty in center. "He reads the ball well off the bat and runs well for a big guy," Gardenhire said.

Tomorrow, the Twins will play their first spring training game. Gardenhire said he'll hold Restovich out for perhaps a week, to protect his shoulder.

So, for the immediate future, Restovich will be viewed as an injured utility outfielder. He says it could be worse.

"If I make this team, I'll be excited," he said. "That's been a goal of mine since I've been here, to leave on the plane April 3 to Minneapolis.

"I don't want to be one of those guys who thinks it's better somewhere else, because you don't know. You hear people say, 'I can't wait to get out of here,' then they go somewhere else and don't play any more.

"I realize there are situations out there where I could be playing more and getting a better opportunity. If that arose from being put on waivers, then I'd be happy about that. But for me to say that if I make this team as a fifth outfielder, and I could be starting somewhere else, well, the grass isn't always greener."

And who knows? One injury, and he could become this year's Lew Ford or Justin Morneau, a top prospect who finds himself in a playoff lineup.

That would culminate a long and, yes, slippery climb.