By Randy Whitehouse,Staff Writer

It was a rare night off at home, and Tip Fairchild was clearing out the cobwebs from his head, trying to answer a question about the road trip from which he and his Tri-City ValleyCats had just returned.

“I can’t even remember where we were,” he said.

Things tend to run together like that in the New York-Penn League, where they’ve played 39 games in 42 days and have had two non rain-out days off. Road trips are long and tiring. The bus sometimes doesn’t pull into the next town until 5 a.m., which leaves little time to sleep before the players have to report to the ballpark for practice, weight lifting or a game. If exhaustion hasn’t set in after 8-10 hours at the ballpark, there may be time for a movie or, if they’re home, some grocery shopping.

Fairchild, the former Monmouth Academy and University of Southern Maine star, has been living the life ever since he was drafted in the 12th round of last June’s draft by the Houston Astros and assigned to their short-season Single-A affiliate in Troy, New York.

“The hours that you put in are pretty intense,” said Fairchild. “It’s just setting in now that I’m playing baseball for a living. This is a legitimate, real job.”

Eric Cavers and Aaron Easton already have had a year on the job. By happenstance, they’ve joined Fairchild in a kind of Maine invasion of one of the country’s oldest minor leagues.

Slow start

Cavers and Fairchild share an apartment 10 minutes from the ballpark with three other teammates. While they’ve shown they can more than hold their own on the diamond, they admit it’s hard not to notice that they are part of a rare breed in minor league baseball.

“Everyone else is from all those hotbeds of baseball, the places where all of the athletes come from, like Texas and Florida and California,” Fairchild said. “They give us some crap sometimes, but at least I’ve got someone else to take half of it.”

A 10th-round pick by the Astros in last year’s draft, Cavers has had more time to adjust to the minors than some of his teammates, but he’s also had more adversity to overcome than most of them.

The catcher had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder last March and is just starting to feel close to 100 percent.

“I struggled a little bit early. It took a little bit to get back into it,” said Cavers, who remarkably recovered from the surgery in about four months, two months ahead of doctors’ projections.

“I don’t feel like I have the arm strength now that I had, but that will come,” he said. “I find that I don’t have any pain. That’s what I’m looking for.”

Cavers had a three-week rehab in extended spring training and was rusty at the plate when he was activated by Tri-City in early July. Now, he’s swinging one of the hottest bats on the team, batting .360 in his last eight games and is batting .306 overall (see box).

Fairchild also struggled in the early going, but impressed his coaches enough to get a spot in the starting rotation in late July. He got a no-decision his first time out and has collected wins in his last two outings, giving up just two walks and no home runs while fanning 11 in 15 innings. He was unscored upon as a starter before giving up four earned runs in his last appearance on July 29.

“I’m on a five-inning count right now. It doesn’t matter how many pitches I throw,” he said.

Hands off

Like all new draftees, Fairchild was subject to the Astros’ “hands-off” policy for the first 30 days of his stint. Coaches aren’t allowed to make any changes or even suggestions during that time.

“They look for you to fix it yourself to see if you have that ability, to see if you know yourself,” said Cavers, who went through the same thing last year with the Astros’ Rookie affiliate in Greenville, N.C.

Now that the moratorium has been lifted, coaches have told Fairchild to de-emphasize his curve ball, which they don’t think needs much work, and work more on changing speeds and getting hitters to get themselves out.

“They want me to use my change-up a lot and use my fastball a lot so I can start establishing it as a pitch. I’m just learning a different way to throw. It’s not anything mechanical, it’s just pitching to contact rather than striking guys out,” he said. “That’s the biggest thing. When I first came out here, I was striking out a lot of guys, but I was throwing a lot of pitches.”

As a second-year player, Cavers was able to seek guidance from the coaching staff as soon as he got to Troy, and they’ve worked with him on his footwork and mechanics behind the plate as well as his timing at the plate.

“The catching’s going good,” he said. “My confidence has been building, and knowing what to expect (after a year in the minors) was an advantage.”

Maine invasion

Cavers had a reunion of sorts last week when the ValleyCats visited the Jamestown Jammers, the Florida Marlins’ affiliate and home to Easton.

The former high school and legion teammates chatted for a few minutes at the ballpark, but didn’t get a chance to square off against each other. Easton, a 6-foot-10 right-handed pitcher drafted in the 29th round last year by the Marlins, has been on the shelf with bicep tendinitis.

“Showing up to the park and not being able to throw off the mound is kind of frustrating,” said Easton, who has been keeping busy shooting video for the Jammers.

He hopes to return to action later this week or next week, and wouldn’t mind picking up where he left off before getting hurt. In eight games this year, all in relief, he has allowed just six earned runs in 17 innings (3.18 ERA) and has struck out 15.

Primarily a starter during his college career at Flagler College and UMass-Lowell, Easton has pitched in practically every type of relief situation for the Jammers.

“I wouldn’t say it’s tougher. It’s just a different schedule,” he said. “You have to adjust in terms of rest days. As a starter, you have four days to prepare for your next outing, and as a reliever, you may not get any days. I like the set schedule of being a starter, but being a reliever, you come into situations that are a little tougher and that gives you a little more adrenaline.”

“It’s pretty tough. You’ve got 13-hour road trips to Vermont and you get lost a couple of times. Being as tall as I am, and being on a bus for 13 hours, you can’t get very comfortable,” he said.

Every once in awhile, though, he’s reminded why he’s taking those long, uncomfortable road trips.

“We’ve been to Staten Island and Brooklyn, and you’re under the lights and the fans are great,” he said. “It’s the closest thing I’ve seen to the big leagues. It’s nice.”