#CardCorner: 1995 Donruss Salomón Torres

As a 21-year-old rookie, Salomón Torres was called on to start the San Francisco Giants’ final game of the 1993 season – a contest that would determine the outcome of one of the game’s great divisional races.

Torres and the Giants lost that game, giving Atlanta the National League West title. But over the next decade, Torres reinvented himself as a reliever – one who recorded the second-most appearances ever in one season.

For Torres, it was the unlikely second act of a career powered by one of baseball’s elite arms.

Born March 11, 1972, in San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic, Torres grew up wanting to play shortstop like so many others from the famous town on the southeastern side of the island of Hispaniola. But Torres’ powerful arm dictated another path.

“I wish I could be a big league shortstop,” Torres told the Sacramento Bee during his rookie campaign with the Giants. “That’s one of my favorite positions. But my first Little League manager thought I was a good pitcher. Basically, I was the only pitcher on my team. He needed me.”

Torres’ baseball heroes as a youngster were Tony Peña, who also hailed from the Dominican Republic, and pitcher Dwight Gooden, who electrified the baseball world as a 19-year-old phenom in 1984 when Torres was 12 years old. By the end of the 1980s, Torres seemed to be following the same path to stardom as Gooden did.

Torres signed with the Giants on Sept. 15, 1989, and pitched in the Dominican League in 1990, going 11-1 with a 0.50 ERA for San Pedro. He was nearly as dominant in 1991 for Class A Clinton of the Midwest League, posting a 16-5 record and 1.41 ERA while striking out 214 batters over 210.1 innings.

Torres was assigned to Double-A Shreveport of the Texas League in 1992. And though he struggled at times against players who were on the average four years older than he was – going winless in the second half of the season after earning a berth in the Texas League All-Star Game – he flashed his enormous potential while posting a 6-10 record with a 4.21 ERA.

“He makes it easy,” Shreveport catcher Dan Fernandez told the Shreveport Times. “His control is so good that I could call any of his four pitches and he would throw it for a strike. And not just a strike; I mean, a good strike.”

Torres struck out 151 batters and walked just 34 in 162.1 innings in 1992.

“He’s 20 years old,” Shreveport pitching coach Steve Cline told the Times. “Most kids that age have control of maybe two pitches. He’s got it with four. And he’s 20 years old.”

Torres returned to Shreveport to start the 1993 season and went 7-4 with a 2.70 ERA in 12 starts before earning a promotion to Triple-A Phoenix. He was 7-4 there with a 3.50 ERA when the Giants brought him to San Francisco in late August – thrusting him into a pennant race that saw the Braves get red hot in the second half while trying to catch the Giants.

With injuries to starting pitchers Bud Black and Trevor Wilson – and ace Bill Swift feeling the burden of a workload of what would amount to 232.2 innings, 58 more than he had ever pitched before – the Giants put Torres into the rotation. He debuted on Aug. 29 vs. the Marlins, picking up the win while allowing five hits and three runs over seven innings.

“I don’t think we’ve been so patient (with Torres),” Giants manager Dusty Baker told the Sacramento Bee. “For modern baseball, it’s patient. But when I came up, you came up one level at a time. Now a lot of kids go straight from Double-A to the majors.”

Torres made eight starts down the stretch, highlighted by eight shutout innings against the Padres on Sept. 25 in a 3-1 San Francisco win. The Giants stood at 97-57 after that victory but still trailed the Braves by a game-and-a-half. With the advent of the Wild Card not coming until 1994, one of the two teams would not make the playoffs.

San Francisco won three games in a row from there but lost to the Rockies 5-3 on Sept. 29 as Torres was tagged for four runs over 2.2 innings. The Giants (100-58) now trailed the Braves by one game entering a four-game weekend series against the Dodgers, and San Francisco won the first three games to pull into a tie with Atlanta – which was playing the Rockies – at 103-58.

On the season’s final day, Torres took the mound against the Dodgers. After matching zeros against Los Angeles starter Kevin Gross for two innings, Torres allowed two runs in the third on an RBI single by Dave Hansen and a run-scoring double by Eric Karros. Then in the fourth, Torres walked two of the first three batters he faced before he was chased from the game by a pop fly RBI single by José Offerman. The Giants bullpen surrendered nine more runs in what became a 12-1 Los Angeles win.

When the Braves defeated the Rockies 5-3, the Giants’ season ended.

“It might have been different if we had scored some runs,” Giants pitching coach Dick Pole told the media after the loss. “I thought Salomón was the right guy to pitch. I thought he was going to settle in.”

Torres’ 3.1 innings that day left him with an astonishing season total of 233.1 innings for the 21-year-old right-hander.

“We ran out of gas with our pitching,” Baker said. “Everybody that went out there today was extremely exhausted because they had pitched so much.”

Torres started the Giants’ fifth game of the 1994 season but struggled throughout the season’s first three months, departing the team briefly in late June while reportedly leaving a note for Baker saying: “I can’t pitch at this level.”

Torres soon returned but was optioned to Triple-A Phoenix on July 3 with a 2-8 record and 5.44 ERA. He did not return to the majors that year, appearing in 13 games with Phoenix while posting a 5-6 record and 4.22 ERA.

After making four early-season appearances with the Giants in 1995, Torres was traded to the Mariners on May 21 in exchange for Wilson Delgado and Shawn Estes. He lost his first three decisions with Seattle but pitched better as the summer went on before being demoted to Triple-A Tacoma in August. He finished the season with a combined 3-9 record in the big leagues with a 6.30 ERA, including 49 walks and 47 strikeouts in 80 innings.

“it’s a lot different than in San Francisco,” Torres told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I’m much happier here.”

But Torres started the 1996 season with Tacoma before being recalled to Seattle in May. He bounced between Tacoma and Seattle for much of the season, going 3-3 with a 4.59 ERA over 49 innings with the Mariners.

After appearing in two games out of the bullpen to start the 1997 season – and allowing 10 earned runs over 3.1 innings – Torres was placed on waivers and soon claimed by the Expos. He posted a 7.25 ERA in 12 games with Montreal, was sent to Triple-A Ottawa in July and abruptly announced his retirement after Ottawa’s 5-4 win over the Columbus Clippers on July 31. He quickly took a job as a pitching coach for the Expos’ summer league affiliate in the Dominican Republic.

At that point, Torres’ playing days seemed to be over. But the second act of his career fulfilled the potential of his youth.

Torres was out of the game for almost four seasons, appearing only in two games in the Korean league in 2001. But while in Korea, he learned that his wife, Belkis, and he would soon welcome their first child.

“Everything changed,” Torres told the Sacramento Bee in 2004. “Not only did I have to provide for my wife, but I had to provide for kids, to give them a better life.”

Fortunately, Torres' time as a pitching coach put him in contact with Expos farm director Dave Littlefield, who would become the Pittsburgh Pirates general manager in 2001. On Dec. 30 of that year, Torres signed a minor league deal with Pittsburgh. He pitched well in Spring Training of 2002 – allowing no runs over six innings – but was sent to Triple-A Nashville to work on his command.

“I’m very disappointed,” Torres told the Associated Press after being sent to the minors. “I thought I was impressing everybody, so (the Pirates) told me. I’m really surprised by this but they say they want me to go out and pitch in the minors and that’s what I have to do.”

After going 8-5 with a 3.83 ERA while striking out 136 batters in 162.1 innings, the Pirates brought Torres to Pittsburgh in September.

“He just needed to go out and pitch,” Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “We felt at some time he’d be able to help us here. He’s throwing the ball pretty good. It gives us an opportunity to look at him and evaluate him.”

In his first game with Pittsburgh on Sept. 3, Torres shut out the Braves over 8.1 innings, allowing just four hits and a walk while striking out five and picking up his first big league win since 1996. He made four more starts in September, finishing the season with a 2-1 record and 2.70 ERA.

Torres was in the mix to be the Pirates’ No. 5 starter in 2003 but instead landed a job as a reliever. But when Josh Fogg suffered an abdominal strain after one inning against the Cubs on April 20, Torres was called on and responded with five shutout innings. Torres also hit Sammy Sosa in the head with a fourth-inning pitch, cracking Sosa’s helmet and forcing him out of the game.

Sosa ended up with just a few small cuts but was clearly shaken – and the photo of the hit-by-pitch by Mike Longo of the AP ran in newspapers from coast-to-coast the next day.

The outing, however, convinced the Pirates to try Torres in the rotation. He made six straight starts but never worked past the sixth inning, eventually returning to the bullpen before a late-season stretch of six more starts. He finished the year with a 7-5 record and 4.76 ERA over 41 games, striking out 84 batters over 121 innings.

The Pirates made Torres a fulltime reliever in 2004, and Torres proved to be one of the most durable pitchers in the game – appearing in 84 contests while working 92 innings, going 7-7 with a 2.64 ERA. Following the season, the Pirates rewarded him with a two-year deal worth $2.6 million.

In 2005, Torres posted almost identical numbers, going 5-5 with a 2.76 ERA in 94.2 innings – the most of any reliever in baseball – over 78 games. Then in 2006, Torres appeared in a big league-leading 94 contests, going 3-6 with 12 saves and a 3.28 ERA. The Pirates moved Torres into the closer’s role in September due to injuries, and Torres responded with 12 saves in 13 chances.

His 94 appearances remain the second-most ever in any MLB season, tied with Pittsburgh’s Kent Tekulve in 1979 and behind Mike Marshall’s 106 with the Dodgers in 1974. And Torres remains one of just five pitchers in history to work 90-or-more games in one season.

Torres and the Pirates had agreed to a contract extension on April 4, 2006, that paid him $6.5 million and carried him through the 2008 season and included a team option for 2009. But in 2007, the workload began to catch up with Torres and he appeared in just 56 games, going 2-4 with a 5.47 ERA. Torres also lost the closer job to Matt Capps.

With one year remaining on his contract, Torres was traded to the Brewers on Dec. 7, 2007, in exchange for Marino Salas and a minor leaguer. It was a trade that Torres welcomed as he felt that Littlefield had misled him into signing his latest extension – which Torres felt was below market value.

“He had a little bit of an off year (in 2007),” Brewers general manager Doug Melvin told the Wisconsin State Journal. “But we think a change of scenery is going to help him.”

The Brewers used Torres as a set-up man to start the season before moving him into the closer’s role in place of Eric Gagné in May. Torres thrived at the back of the bullpen, recording saves in eight straight games in late June/early July and finishing with a 7-5 record, 28 saves and a 3.49 ERA in 71 games while helping Milwaukee capture the NL Wild Card. He appeared in the first two postseason games of his career in the NLDS vs. the Phillies, working a scoreless inning apiece in Game 2 and Game 3 as the Brewers fell in four games.

It would turn out to be the last games of Torres’ career. Despite the fact that the Brewers were set to pick up his $3.75 million option for 2009, Torres announced on Nov. 11, 2008, that he was retiring.

“While I still have great passion and energy for the game,” Torres told Lee Newspapers, “I feel the time has come to redirect that passion to my energy and God.”

A devout Jehovah’s Witness, Torres kept his word and walked away from millions of dollars. He finished his 12-year career with a 44-58 record and 4.31 ERA over 497 appearances – 77 percent of which came over his final five seasons.

It was redemption for a pitcher who in 1993 faced as challenging a scenario as any rookie ever has.

“I replayed that game a lot,” Torres told the Sacramento Bee in the spring of 1994 as he and the Giants were picking up the pieces after the heartbreak of the previous season’s final game. “Who wouldn’t? I was mad because I knew I could do better. But I never felt like I didn’t want the ball that day.

“Everything I went through helped me. You learn from mistakes.”

Craig Muder is the director of communications for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum