SAN FRANCISCO - Shawn Estes is something of a fixation for Giants fans, even though it has been three years now since the season that made him such a cult figure in the first place.
Thus, as the Giants celebrated their first real rainout of the new season (hey, anything beats what they've been doing in good weather), they decided that now was the time to bring out the newest version of A. Shawn Estes, just in time to spice up a road trip that looks harder than a 5,000-piece one-color jigsaw puzzle.
Estes was activated from the ow-my-shoulder-hurts list Sunday and inserted into a Wednesday start in Cincinnati, just after Joe Nathan and right before Livan Hernandez. It was, next to President Clinton standing and watching the tarp collect puddles, the high point of what looked to be mostly a wasted day.
In fact, it wasn't a waste at all. For one thing, it was the first day since the new ballpark opened that a player didn't have something both unkind and/or pointedly accurate to say about the park, the uniforms or the fans.
For two, they got an extra day of rest before Tuesday's series opener at Ken Griffey Field, which especially helps Barry Bonds, whose arm is already barking at him.
For three, they weren't asked to meet the Prez without their uniform belts ''because they'll set off the metal detector,'' manager Dusty Baker laughed.
And for four, they didn't fall any farther behind Arizona. After all, being a week behind after two weeks of play is not considered a sign of happy days ahead.
But back to Estes. After his third trip to the DL in a little more than two years for shoulder crankiness, he started to resemble The Pitcher Who Wasn't There. His effervescent 19-5 season in 1997 stands alone next to the rest of his Giants work, in which he is 20-31 with an ERA of 4.83 in 57 other starts.
Even his 1999 season, in which he basically split the difference, going 11-11, 4.92, he had streaks of brilliance breaking up stretches of tedium. Indeed, his '97 season looks more and more like the aberration rather than the standard.
The Giants, though, are not ready to take that view. They have waited and endured through his skittish '98 and '99 seasons, and now with that 3-9 burrito burning holes in their stomachs, they need Estes to hit the ground running even more than he does himself.
''Now that my injury is behind me and I don't have that in the back of my mind when I throw a baseball,'' he said, ''I can focus on just going out and getting people out. At this level, there's no mulligans.''
Actually, that isn't true, as anyone who remembers Atlee Hammaker will attest.
Estes is not there yet; he hasn't broken nearly as many hearts as Hammaker did here. On the other hand, he hasn't been here as long, either, plus the Giants need him now to keep from watching the season start to go all gray and furry before they've even had a chance to figure out how to read the out-of-town scoreboard.
In other words, the clock is on him again, starting Wednesday against Cincinnati's Pete Harnisch.
''He's been through this before,'' Baker said, ''and he's handled himself pretty well. So now would be the right time.''
Putting Estes between Nathan and Hernandez keeps Baker from having his two left-handed starters (Kirk Rueter being the other) from pitching on successive days, but Baker is doing more than that. He is also moving Rueter back to Saturday in Arizona to face the Diamondbacks' predominantly left-handed hitting lineup.
In the meantime, both Rueter and Mark Gardner will catch bullpen duty so that Baker can finally figure out how to get his relievers into a sensible rhythm. Robb Nen has pitched in only three of the first 12 games, and only once in the last 10 days. Alan Embree, the putative left-handed setup man, has been persistently raked while rookie Aaron Futz, the other lefty, has gotten his hitter out. Jay Johnstone is still looking for any form at all, while Felix Rodriguez is positioning himself to take Johnstone's eighth-inning work.
Not that Estes cures all evils, mind you. He has, through dint of maddening inconsistency and arm trouble, become the one player to make Giants fans wince. They know they need him, but they're not sure whether they can rely on him.
Still, they will sweat out Wednesday's start as they do all his starts, especially now while it's still relatively easy to see the Diamondbacks in the distance. After all, they can't live on rainouts and spot appearances by world leaders all the time.
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.
