MetfanBren
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(8/12/03 4:56 pm)
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 Rrreally High on Ring
www.newsday.com/sports/ba...ts-utility
Looks like a ballplayer....
Rrreally High on Ring
Marty Noble
August 6, 2003
Binghamton, N.Y. - Choose the verb of your preference. The Mets are (A) renovating, (B) refurbishing or (C) rebuilding. They like to think they're (D) reloading. It's back to basics now - build strength up the middle, develop players who are more than one-dimensional and acquire pitching, pitching and more pitching.
What is more fundamental than the Three R's? Reggie Jackson said they stood for resolve, resilience and resourcefulness - qualities a team needs to win. For the Mets, the Three R's are a monogram, an ID for the relief pitcher they acquired from the White Sox last month when they shed Roberto Alomar, one Roger Royce Ring.
Royce Ring will suffice when he is introduced at Shea Stadium probably early next season. The coaches like to call him "Ringer," as in "we brought in a ringer." "Triple R" already is his clubhouse nickname with the Binghamton Mets.
After another season of Russian Roulette Relief, the Mets would be delighted if Royce Ring were merely "2-R" - really reliable. "That's the plan," Ring said last week.
Ring, second baseman Victor Diaz and pitcher Jason Anderson are the most highly regarded of the players the Mets have imported this summer while cutting costs. They have the highest ceilings. Ring is probably the one who will reach the major leagues first. Pitchers generally develop faster than position players, and relief pitchers are particularly better equipped to make the jump, if only because they usually have just one or two pitches to master.
Ring, lefthanded and 22, has three - a 90-91 mile-per-hour fastball that has lost some velocity since he last pitched for San Diego State, a changeup he wishes could be as effective as that thrown by San Diego's Trevor Hoffman and, the pitch that caught the Mets' attention and bothers lefthanded hitters, a slurve. It's a hybrid of a slider and a curve.
"More slider than curve," pitching coach Bobby Ojeda said. "But who cares what you call it? It's a quality pitch." And the one responsible for most of Ring's strikeouts.
Ring struck out 11 in his first 11 2/3 innings with the B-Mets.
Binghamton manager John Stearns called the slurve "filthy." That's complimentary.
"It's an above-average, late-breaking, sweeping slider with depth," Stearns said. "He spots his fastball on both sides and can throw his changeup away. It's a nice, usual assortment."
What most distinguishes Ring, though, is his attitude. "I like the challenge," he said. Before the trade, he was pitching for Wally Backman, the former Mets second baseman, now manager of the White Sox's Double-A Birmingham affiliate. He has some Backman and Stearns in him.
"Fearless," Stearns said. "He wants the ball when the game's on the line and he doesn't wilt under pressure. It's nice to have him here, but I don't think we'll have him for a long time."
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
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"He's been selected to the Hall Of Fame five years in a row." ~Ralph Kiner on Daryll Strawberry Edited by: MetfanBren at: 8/12/03 5:03 pm
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