The Colorado Rockies' home turf is where balls often vanish into thin air.

01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, June 15, 2004

BY ART MARTONE and SEAN McADAM
Journal Sports Writers

They've been there, and they know.

"It's a hitters' haven," says the Red Sox' Ellis Burks, who called Coors Field home from 1994-98.

A hitters' haven, indeed. Coors Field in Denver, located a mile above sea level, is a place where baseballs fly. Breaking pitches don't break as sharply in the thin air, line drives carry farther, and hitters do reasonable Ted Williams impersonations. Scientists have determined that a ball hit 400 feet in Yankee Stadium, which is at sea level, will travel 440 feet at Coors.

Pitchers, on the other hand . . .

"It's a place where only mentally tough pitchers are going to succeed," says Burks' teammate, Gabe Kapler, a Colorado Rockie in 2002 and part of '03.

Kapler is no doubt licking his chops -- and Burks would be, too, were he not on the disabled list -- at the prospect of the Red Sox opening the road portion of their interleague schedule tonight with the first of three games in Denver against the Rockies. And why not? He's a hitter.

Bronson Arroyo, on the other hand, is a pitcher. He's drawn the unenviable task of working tonight for the Red Sox.

"You hear so much about it," said Arroyo. "You see the numbers. You can't deny that there's something there. But you try not to let it affect you mentally."

The numbers are astounding. STATS Inc. once determined that 54 percent more runs are scored by the Rockies and their opponents at Coors Field, and this year's figures bear that out. In 29 games at Coors Field this year, the Rockies are batting .306 with a .384 on-base percentage and a .543 slugging percentage. They've scored 199 runs, an average of 6.86 per game. But that's nothing compared to their opponents, who are hitting .316/.390/.525, and -- with a total of 221 runs -- averaging 7.62 runs per game.

On the road? The Rockies hit .239/.302/.389 and score 3.84 runs per game. Their opponents drop to .272/.358/.461 and 5.24 runs . . . good, but nothing like what they compile in Denver.

"You always hear guys [in the National League] saying [sarcastically], 'Great. I've got to go pitch in Colorado,' " said Arroyo, who played for the Pirates in 2000-02 but managed to avoid working at Coors.

Which, according to Burks, is exactly the wrong approach.

"You've got to have it in your mind that you're not going to let it affect you," he said.

Sox reliever Alan Embree pitched 15 games at Coors during his 5 1/2 years in the National League. He didn't have a whole lot of success -- 0-2 record, 7.84 E.R.A. -- but he knows that success in Coors Field, for a pitcher, is measured differently than success in other venues.

"Don't be intimidated by it, because then you're going to be in trouble," he said. "Guys gets so worked up about how the ball carries that they lose focus and can't throw strikes. After you get over the mental block, it's a little bit easier."

Sox manager Terry Francona -- who experienced Coors as skipper of the Phillies from 1997-2000 -- thinks the mental aspect is key.

Boston pitchers, he said, are "smart enough to know you should just try to win. Instead of 3-2, it might be 9-8. It's the same as anywhere else; it's just that your mistakes get magnified more there."

Francona already has been setting strategy for his three days in Denver; he juggled his starting rotation last week so that knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, whose pitches figure to flatten out in the thin air, would miss the series. And during the next three games, you may see a different Francona than you'd see in a normal setting.

"If anything," he said "you're more patient [with your pitchers] because if you get a guy out too soon, you'll run out of pitchers."

"Sometimes you have to keep starters in longer and take your lumps," agrees Embree. "If you don't, you can run through your whole pitching staff in one night."

But for all the worrying about what the Sox will do when they're in the field, they're still looking forward to what they'll do when they're at the plate.

"It might be to our advantage," said Francona. "It's a good place to hit."