Belisario's destination now known MLB: After bouncing around low-level minors for various organizations, reliever seems to have found home with Dodgers.

Byline: Tony Jackson, Staff Writer

When the Dodgers' charter flight to Houston went wheels-up Monday, the only thing that mattered to Ronald Belisario was that he was on it, presumably with three coach seats all to himself like all the other players. He wasn't thinking of how close he came to not being there, how close he came to not being in the majors at all this year or how close he came to once again being one of those lightly regarded, low-level prospects battling culture shock in some sleepy, minor-league burb.

And he certainly wasn't thinking about the perfect storm of events that got him where he is now, with a stellar 1.04 ERA through six relief appearances for the surging Dodgers.

Unlike life, baseball is more about the destination than the journey. But the journey can sure make for a good story sometimes, and Belisario's has been a fascinating one.

A year ago, he was in the Pittsburgh organization, his eighth season of pro ball if you count the two he missed after Tommy John surgery. He was at Double-A Altoona, which was still the highest level he had managed to reach, and he was still a guy from Venezuela, albeit one who spoke fluent English, trying to get comfortable with life in aPennsylvania town that he, like every one of his teammates, was trying to perform his way out of.

He also wasn't very good. He made 38relief appearances, gave up 63 hits in 57innings and walked way too many batters (25) while striking out way too few (36), a habit he had been trying to overcome throughout his professional career not only in the U.S. but also in winter ball in Venezuela.

That was where Ron Rizzi, a longtime Dodgers scout based on the East Coast who spends big chunks of his offseasons in the Venezuelan Winter League, had seen him. Had been seeing him for years, in fact. But he had never seen him like this.

"He had a power arm, but he was a guy who really struggled with his command and feel," Rizzi said. "But when I went to scout the Venezuelan Winter League this past year, he was closing for the Leones, a team in Caracas, because K-Rod (NewYork Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez) wasn't going to get there until the end of December. Belisario was coming in at 94-96 (mph) with a plus sinker, a power slider and a splitter. The first couple of times I saw him close, he was on, locating to both sides of the plate with his fastball."

By January, Rizzi was pleading his case to the front office to give the kid a shot. Although Belisario was 26 and had a spotty track record, general manager Ned Colletti and assistant GM Kim Ng, who handles most of the minor-league free-agent signings, were listening.

"I hear it all the time," Colletti said. "But when you hear real conviction in somebody's choice of words and their voice, it puts more credence into it. (Rizzi) had alot of conviction that this guy could help our club. I asked him if he thought this guy could help us at the big-league level sometime this year. He told me I might be surprised, because he might help us sooner than that."

Belisario didn't help them at all at first. He was invited to major-league spring training, but he showed up several days late, the result of complications with his work-visa request and a missed airline connection in Miami - he had seven hours, but he says his flight from Caracas arrived late.

That initially landed Belisario in management's doghouse because it threw off the delicate balance of trying to schedule bullpens and allot innings for the more than 30pitchers the Dodgers had in camp.

Whether a result of that or not, Belisario was part of the first round of cuts March 6, one of five players (all pitchers) reassigned to minor-league camp.

"I was pretty sure that was the reason," Belisario said.

Dodgers manager Joe Torre wouldn't say it was. But he wouldn't say it wasn't, either.

"We liked his stuff, but we hadn't seen him much," Torre said. "He needed work, and we didn't have the innings. He needed to go to the minor-league side and pitch."

Belisario's next lucky break came March 16. With the Dodgers facing their only split-squad date of the spring, they needed warm bodies, and a call was put in to assistant GM and player-development chief De Jon Watson. He sent over several players from minor-league camp. One of them was Belisario, who took the mound for the bottom of the eighth inning of a game against Oakland. The Dodgers were trailing by a lopsided margin, and the stands were half empty. Outside of Colletti and Watson in the stands and Torre and pitching coach Rick Honeycutt in the dugout, no one was really paying attention.

Belisario pitched a scoreless inning, but not necessarily a pretty one. He gave up a double and walked a batter, but then got a double-play grounder to end it.

He wouldn't see the big-league side again for twoweeks. But when he was handed the ball for the final two innings of another blowout loss to the same A's on March 30, he mowed down seven batters in a row, one of them reaching base on an error by second baseman Orlando Hudson. Two days later, the Dodgers were to break camp and return to Los Angeles for a series of exhibition games. It was decided that day Belisario, who still hadn't officially been promoted back to major-league camp, would go with them.

"That was when I knew I had a chance to make this team," Belisario said. "When they told me I was coming here."

He would pitch three more scoreless innings in those games. But it wasn't until late on the evening of April4, when the Dodgers were setting their Opening Day roster, that he was officially in the clear.

"We had a couple of meetings right at the end, and that was when we settled on him," Torre said. "He was pretty impressive."

After four years bouncing around the low minors with the Florida Marlins' organization, two years recovering from Tommy John surgery and two years with Pittsburgh, mostly at Double-A, and after filing for minor-league free agency last fall, Belisario made the unlikeliest of major-league debuts April 7, pitching a perfect eighth inning against the heart of San Diego's lineup.

His only hiccup came last Wednesday against San Francisco, when he inherited a mess from a struggling Hong-Chih Kuo and was called upon to preserve a one-run lead with two on and none out. Belisario gave up a three-run homer to Aaron Rowand, but the Dodgers came right back to tie and eventually win, and Belisario came right back to give the Dodgers two more shutout innings the very next night.

In 82/3 total innings, he has struck out 12, walked only two and held opposing batters to a .194 average.

"I'm really not all that surprised," Belisario said, without sounding cocky. "Icame to spring training to make this team, and I felt great. I was going to work hard and do the best I could to be on this team when the season started."

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CAPTION(S):

Rookie right-hander Ronald Belisario has a 1.04 ERA in six relief ap pearances for the NL West-leading Dodgers.

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