BASEBALL / FERNANDO DOMINGUEZ : Tenacity a Giant Help for Barton

Few people would beat around the minor leagues for more than a decade, waiting for a call from the Big Club that might never come.

Left-hander Shawn Barton, however, apparently has more patience than most. And it finally paid off this year.

Barton, who graduated from Saugus High in 1981, is a 32-year-old rookie reliever with the San Francisco Giants who spent 11 seasons in the minors before being called up from triple-A Phoenix on May 20.

Since then, Barton has held his own. Going into Saturday night’s game with the Dodgers at Candlestick Park, Barton was 2-1 with a 3.34 earned-run average, working primarily against left-handed batters. And the Giants have shown confidence in Barton by allowing him to work as many as three innings in a game.

One of his biggest supporters has been Giant pitching coach Dick Pole, who can’t explain why Barton never stuck with a major league team before.

“It’s kind of unusual that a left-hander who throws strikes has been in the minor leagues so long,” Pole said.

Before this season, Barton had been in the major leagues for only 14 games in 1992, with Seattle, where he was 0-1 with a 2.92 ERA. He was picked by Philadelphia in the 21st round of the 1984 draft and also played in the New York Mets’ and Atlanta Braves’ organizations. Barton signed with the Giants as a free agent last year.

“I told myself that once I got back up [to the majors], I was going to prove that I could pitch at this level or move on with my life,” Barton said. “This has been my lifelong dream. It’s overwhelming. I hope it continues.”

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One year ago, Jeremy Hernandez seemed poised to become the Florida Marlins’ top reliever. Now the main thing he’s trying to save is his career.

The former Poly High and Cal State Northridge standout developed a herniated disk in his neck last season, soon after he had taken over for the injured Bryan Harvey as the Marlin closer, and underwent season-ending neck fusion surgery in June. He finished 3-3 with nine saves and a 2.70 ERA.

This season, Hernandez would have been among the candidates to replace Harvey, who is out for the season with a torn elbow ligament. But Hernandez, 29, hasn’t been able to recapture his old form. He allowed 10 hits and six earned runs in 5 2/3 innings when the Marlins put him on the 60-day disabled list and sent him to triple-A Charlotte on June 19,

It didn’t help much. Hernandez was 0-2 with a 5.58 ERA in 15 games at Charlotte before the Marlins recalled him Wednesday and kept him on the disabled list. Hernandez said the move was made so he could work on his mechanics with Larry Rothschild, the Florida pitching coach.

“[The rehab] is not going real well,” Hernandez said. “My velocity is inconsistent. It’s up to 91 [m.p.h.] sometimes, then it goes down to 85-88. . . . My arm feels the same. It seems to be mechanical.”

Hernandez, in his fifth major league season and second with Florida, said he hopes to be ready to rejoin the Marlins when the rosters expand in September.

“I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to step into a closer role,” Hernandez said. “When I came to the Marlins I thought I would have the opportunity to learn from Harvey, and when he got hurt I felt that was my break. It’s been frustrating because what I was looking for was within reach. Now it feels like it’s a million miles away.”

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Former El Camino Real High ace Randy Wolf improved his lot on the U.S. national team last week.

Wolf, a left-hander now at Pepperdine, allowed one earned run and struck out seven in 3 1/3 relief innings in a 7-6 victory over powerful Cuba last Saturday at Millington, Tenn.

The victory set the tone for the four-game series. The Americans recorded and unprecedented sweep of the Cubans, the defending world and Olympic champions.