Stars post another losing mark

It was a ho-hum season for the Las Vegas Stars as a team. A look at the individual players, however, and one can find positives.

The Stars concluded their season on Monday with a 70-72 record. It was a drastic improvement over last year's team that went 56-85, yet it still marked the fifth losing season in six years.

Third-year Stars manager Jerry Royster will be the first to remind any critic that his job is to develop future San Diego Padres rather than win. Based on that, Royster is proud of what he accomplished.

"It was a very rewarding year just to watch these guys progress," said Royster, who is 198-223 in his three years with Las Vegas. "These guys were true men."

The most obvious breakthrough player was third baseman George Arias, who broke the Stars season home run record with 36 before the Padres recalled him Aug. 21. Arias batted .308 with 119 RBIs and a Pacific Coast League-leading .651 slugging percentage.

Last year, Arias had a combined 12 home runs and 65 RBIs with Las Vegas and the California Angels' top affiliate in Vancouver.

Other offensive prospects to emerge this season were outfielders Chris Prieto and Aaron Guiel and catcher Creighton Gubanich, who still must improve his defensive skills to reach the next level.

The Stars offense also benefitted from the presence of veterans like Eddie Williams, Dave Hajek, James Mouton and Archi Cianfrocco.

Williams added firepower, including a four-homer, 10-RBI performance at Calgary in April. Hajek was a model of consistency at second base, breaking the Stars' season hits record. Mouton and Cianfrocco further stabilized the squad with major-league quality play.

"The season flew by because of the guys on the team," Royster said. "When they came up from double-A, they did their work. When they came down from the major leagues, I didn't have a bunch of guys crying because they weren't in the big leagues."

Another of Royster's top pupils was pitcher Stan Spencer, who also has become an effective member of the Padres staff last month.

"Stan Spencer, I gotta admit, he was my pet," Royster said. "From the beginning he was an underdog-type. I went out on a limb for this guy and he ends up making it to the major leagues.

"He is the one guy who said 'Let's do it.' And he progressed to the point where they had to call him up, even though he's not a (40-man) roster guy."

Unfortunately, Las Vegas didn't have anyone of Spencer's caliber in the bullpen.

"We spent the whole year without a closer and that's why we lost," Royster said. "It's the only reason we weren't contending."

The Stars were 16 games out of first place at the July 6 all-star break, but they were able to close the gap to six games by early August.

"The one disappointment about this team is we did not win with such a good group of guys, but it was still fun to go after it," Royster said. "We got very close in August. All of the sudden we were battling again. We turned it on and played some very good baseball."

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