Jason Conti is enjoying one of the best months of his professional baseball career.

An outfielder for the Texas Rangers' Class AAA minor-league team the Oklahoma Redhawks, he ended April with a .294 batting average, but is hitting 49 points higher at .343 (62 for 181).

Conti, 29, a Seneca Valley graduate who played at the University of Pittsburgh, has hit .385 (37 for 96) during the month of May with 8 doubles, 3 home runs and 16 RBIs.

The terrific play, however, isn't causing Conti to do somersaults.

This 5-11, 180-pound left-handed hitter from Cranberry has spent time in the major leagues in each of the past four seasons. He likely will make it to the major leagues again at some point this season.

But Tuesday, when two Texas outfielders (Brian Jordan and Kevin Mench) were placed on the 15-day disabled list and two Oklahoma outfielders were called up to take their place, Conti did not get the call.

Instead, the Rangers picked Gary Matthews Jr. and Chad Allen to move up to the parent club.

"Jason was in the picture. Texas just happened to pick the other two," Oklahoma manager Bobby Jones said. "He's definitely in the minds of the people in the Rangers' organization. He just needs to get lucky, needs to get a break. He's playing about as well as he can play."

Allen and Matthews also were playing very well at the time of their promotion. Allen was leading the Pacific Coast League in batting average at .392 (51 for 130), while Matthews was hitting .324 (47 for 145) and leading Oklahoma in home runs (9) and RBIs (36).

"It's not like I can complain about it," Conti said. "I was doing well. They were doing well. They want who they want."

Said Jones, "That's just baseball. It wasn't like someone the organization considered a prospect and was batting .250 was called up ahead of him."

Conti, a 32nd-round draft pick of the Arizona Diamondback in 1996, split playing time in the minor leagues and at Arizona in 2000 and 2001.

He spent the entire 2002 season with Tampa Bay, where he hit .257 (57 for 222). Last year, Conti played 121 games at Class AAA Indianapolis and batted .248 (113 for 456) with 10 home runs and played 30 games with the Milwaukee Brewers and hit .229 (11 for 48).

He signed this past fall as a minor-league free agent with Texas.

"Everything looked good at the time I signed. Texas only had three outfielders on their 40-man roster," Conti said. "Now, it doesn't look as good as it did eight months ago."

Conti has had enough ups and downs in his nine-year pro career to know it doesn't do any good "to watch Texas play on TV and then complain about not being up with them."

"That's not going to do any good," he said. "The only thing I can do is concentrate on my at-bats each day."

So far this season his concentration powers have worked to the tune of a batting average almost 100 points higher than he had last year.

"I'm happy about it because it hasn't been just a good couple of weeks," said Conti, who entered the year with a career minor-league batting average of .305. "Soon it will be a good first half of the season."

Jones, 54, in his third season as Oklahoma's manager, thinks Conti's hot bat will land him back in the majors before the September call-ups.

"Right now, he's hitting lefties as well as righties," Jones said. "He's solid defensively, has an above average arm. He plays hard. He knows how to play the game."