A hard thrower overcomes harder times. (Baseball).

Jason Schmidt is quiet, reserved and nice. Very nice. He chuckles at compliments and dismisses them immediately. His smile is contagious, and he appears to be a happy, content man.

Except when he thinks about the past. That's when his head drops, his voice lowers and he admits how vulnerable he has felt.

"There have been some distractions," he says One was shoulder surgery late in 2000 to repair a partially torn rotator cuff in his pitching shoulder. That took almost a year to heal. It took even longer for Schmidt to regain confidence in the arm he uses to produce 97-mph fastballs with dead-on precision.

Then, earlier this season, his mother, Vicki, died after a battle with cancer. "Things like that really make you forget all the petty things in life," he says. "When I focus on pitching, things take care of themselves; it relieves a lot of stress and makes the games fun."

Winning those games with seven, 10, even 13 strikeouts, makes it even more fun. Schmidt, 30, has become the Giants' ace, a trump card on a team known for producing runs, not constricting them.

"He's definitely our guy," Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti says. "And 'ace' isn't something we've labeled him. It's something he's graduated into and earned for himself. Now, he's a guy every team has to stop and really think about."

He also is the leading candidate to start next week's All-Star Game, something Schmidt, not surprisingly, shrugs off. He is pitching with style compiling a 2.30 ...