Owings as DH a long shot

Bob Melvin is no mechanic, but any more tinkering with the Diamondbacks lineup and he may as well get certified. Batting order shuffles, infielders in the outfield, anything to spark the team.

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Little has worked thus far. The team batting average has steadily declined from .272 in April, to .244 through May and now an abysmal .225 in June.

So maybe he’s ready for something drastic, like taking the hitter out of designated hitter.

The Diamondbacks embark on a six-game swing through American League ballparks beginning today in Minnesota, where the use of a DH is allowed. It seems one of the most viable candidates would be pitcher Micah Owings.

“It depends on how he’s swinging,” Melvin said of Owings, who is a career .299 hitter with five homers in 107 at-bats.

New York Yankees manager Billy Martin made the move in 1988, using starting pitcher Rick Rhoden as a DH. Rhoden went 0-for-1 with a sacrifice fly before being removed for a pinch-hitter.

Owings started out blazing, hitting .421 with a homer and three RBIs in April, but is 4-for-28 with no homers and no RBIs since.

“It’d be a great opportunity to get in there,” Owings said. “But as far as the other guys we’ve got here, we’ve got a lot of good guys that can swing it. If I get the opportunity, great, and I’ll do the best that I can.”

Another option would be to keep Owings in the batting lineup when he pitches on Saturday against the Twins.

Two pitchers in American League history have hit for themselves, even with the availability of a designated hitter.

Ferguson Jenkins was 1-for-2 with a run scored with the Rangers on Oct. 2, 1974, and Ken Brett hit for himself twice for the White Sox in the 1976 season, going 0-for-6.

However, if Owings is removed from the game as a pitcher he can not stay in to hit. Melvin would be forced to use pinch-hitters in his spot the rest of the way.

“It’s more difficult to do,” said Melvin when the topic was brought up in spring training. “If you told me he was going to go out there and pitch a complete game, I could do that.”

The topic was also broached in Chicago when the Cubs recently took a six-game trip to Toronto and Tampa Bay. Carlos Zambrano is hitting .362 with a homer and six RBIs this year, but manager Lou Piniella ultimately decided against batting his pitching ace.

Piniella instead used the DH to give stars like Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez a reprieve from the field.

“I know I have to use Zambrano occasionally as a pinch-hitter, but believe me, I like the idea of just having hitters do the hitting and pitchers do the pitching,” Piniella told WGN Radio.

It wasn’t the hitting alone that worried Piniella. Both the Blue Jays and the Rays play on an artificial surface,

“It’s a little different playing on Astroturf,” Piniella said. “It bothers your knees a little more, it bothers your back a little more, so we don’t want any problems with any of our starting pitchers as far as injuries are concerned.”

As it stands, the return to health of Chad Tracy and the likelihood that Eric Byrnes will come back Monday make Owings’ chances of being the DH unlikely, but not impossible.

“Off the top of my head I don’t forecast doing it right now,” Melvin said. “We’ll see. It’s always an option.”