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Capuano won’t let comeback dreams die

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Photo by AP Photo/Morry Gash

Milwaukee Brewers' Chris Capuano throws during the fourth inning of a spring training baseball game against the San Francisco Giants, Saturday in Phoenix.

PHOENIX — More than six years after it became the first big move that nudged the Milwaukee Brewers back toward respectability, the Richie Sexson blockbuster still resonates to one degree or another.

Lyle Overbay, traded to make room for Prince Fielder, yielded Dave Bush, Gabe Gross and Zach Jackson.

Jackson was included in the trade that made the ’08 playoffs possible, the CC Sabathia stunner. Gross was moved for pitching prospect Josh Butler.

Junior Spivey, traded for Tomo Ohka, and Chad Moeller led to dead ends.

The Brewers gave up on Jorge de la Rosa too soon. Three years after control problems caused management to send him to Kansas City for Tony Graffanino, de la Rosa became a 16-game winner in Colorado’s surprising playoff drive last season.

Going on 40, Craig Counsell keeps on keeping on.

And then there is Chris Capuano.

A made-for-spring-training storyline, the 31-year-old left-hander has enough perseverance to float the hopes of anyone trying to recapture a dream. Without the drama he is Jeff Bridges’ comeback character, Bad Blake, in cleats, with a path ahead of him no less bumpy or uncertain.

“That’s a long, long road,” new Brewers lefty Randy Wolf said. “I had one Tommy John (surgery), and you know how long of a road it is.”

But two?

Until Capuano pitched two effective innings of relief Saturday, he had not faced big-league hitters in more than two years.

An 18-game winner in 2005 and all-star in 2006, Capuano was willing to go to the Fall Instructional League to pitch against kids if that’s what it took to rehab his arm. He was willing to go to Montana and pitch in the Rookie League if that’s what it took to get him back to the bigs.

So here he is again, back in camp on a make-good invite at a time when there is a whole lot of competition and almost no opportunity for the guy who was once the staff ace.

And you can’t help but pull for him.

“I’m just trying to take advantage every time I go out there and show them what I can do and hopefully show them I haven’t missed a beat,” Capuano said. “I want to make the decision for them as tough as I can.”

He knows the Brewers have all but moved on with Wolf and Doug Davis. Counting Yovani Gallardo, Manny Parra, Bush and a boatload of cash owed Jeff Suppan, the rotation is oversaturated. There’s not much room in the pen, either.

“There’s a lot I can’t control,” Capuano said. “There is a lot of competition, a lot of guys going for one spot.”

Naturally, he spent part of the last two years thinking about what else he might do for a living. A smart guy with a Duke degree, Capuano would no doubt assimilate well in the real world.

Still, his mind and his body keep telling him he’s a big-league pitcher.

“You have to keep moving forward every day and trying to make little bits of incremental progress,” he said. “It’s tedious and boring, but you try to stay educated and try to stay up on everything you might have to do to follow another career path. But this is obviously my dream, what I want to do.”

So he’ll stay at it, working the odds, until the Brewers or someone else tells Capuano he cannot do it anymore.

“The Brewers have showed a lot of class and have treated me well,” Capuano said. “They’ve always been behind me, and I’ve always felt they were rooting for me. I appreciate that as a player.”

Michael Hunt writes for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.