Angels Out-Witt Mariners for 3-0 Win at Kingdome

After starting out the new season 0-3, Mike Witt made physical and mental adjustments before facing Seattle and Mark Langston Thursday night.

Hypnotherapists Harvey Misel and Lee Fisher helped Witt with the mental phase, while pitching coach Marcel Lachemann made minor alterations in the physical.

The most significant contribution to the end of Witt’s brief losing streak, however, may have come from the Angel hitters.

They collected eight hits and three runs, and Witt turned that modest support into a 3-0 victory, allowing only three hits, striking out five and walking two.

A sixth-inning homer by Bobby Grich provided the only run Witt required, but Seattle generously provided an unearned run in the eighth and another in the ninth.

The Mariners, who opened the season by going 6-0 in the Kingdome and then lost eight of nine on the road, have now lost nine of their last 10 and five straight.

The win enabled the 9-7 Angels to regain a tie with Oakland for the American League West lead and represented Witt’s strongest performance since he ended the 1984 season pitching a perfect game at Texas.

“Mike could just as easily be 3-1 as 1-3,” Manager Gene Mauch said, “but this was his best of the year by a considerable margin.

“You hear a lot about his curve, but he threw some damn nasty low fastballs tonight.

“He threw some pitches on which Bob Boone never had to move his glove.”

Witt stood at his locker and reflected on the three starts that had come before this one.

“I know I’m better than 0-3 and that I had made some stupid mistakes,” he said, “but overall I felt I had done what I was supposed to do, which is go seven, eight or nine innings and keep us in the game.

“I probably bore down a little more tonight just because I hadn’t won, because I hadn’t been getting many runs and because I knew we wouldn’t be getting many with Langston pitching.”

A 17-game winner who was selected the American League’s Rookie Pitcher of the Year in 1984, Langston had defeated Witt and the Angels, 3-2, at Anaheim last Saturday.

Lachemann watched films of that game and decided Witt had been dropping his arm into a three-quarter delivery. He reminded the pitcher that he has to stay upright and come more from an overhead motion.

Witt decided that his concentration hadn’t been what it should be and called the two hypnotherapists who aided in the obvious growth of his confidence last year--Misel in St. Paul and Fisher in Los Angeles.

“I wasn’t doing badly before,” Witt said of his first three starts, “but when you’re not winning, maybe you have to do a little more. I’ll eventually be able to maintain my concentration on my own, but I’m not at that point yet, and I need the reinforcement that I get from Fisher and Misel.”

A third-inning double by Spike Owen, a sixth-inning single by Jack Perconte and a ninth-inning single by Phil Bradley were the only hits for Seattle, which has been outscored, 70-28, in its last 10 games.

The two pivotal pitches for Witt came when he struck out Gorman Thomas on a full-count curve after walking Alvin Davis to open the seventh, and then forced Davis to fly to right on a 1-and-2 fastball after Bradley’s two-out single in the ninth.

Langston, who is 2-2, knows how Witt has been feeling. He pitched well enough to win.

Grich, hitting .366 and batting cleanup in a lineup that included eight right-handed hitters, slugged his second homer of the season with two out in the sixth. He had only one hit in nine career at-bats against Langston until that point.

Brian Downing singled in an unearned run in the eighth, taking advantage of an error by third baseman Jim Presley. Catcher Dave Valle’s failure to hold a throw from center fielder Dave Henderson allowed another unearned run to score in the ninth after the Angels had loaded the bases on a single by Boone, a walk and a bunt single by Gary Pettis.

“Mike was glad to see those last couple runs because his arm was getting a little heavy,” Mauch said later. So was the 0-3 weight on his mind.

Angel Notes

Geoff Zahn, who received a cortisone shot Monday for the tendinitis in his left shoulder, played catch with Marcel Lachemann before Thursday’s game and said, “chances are good that I’ll be able to pitch tomorrow. We’ll have to see how it reacts, but the tipoff was that I could throw as hard as Lach. Otherwise, he’d be throwing tomorrow.” . . . If Zahn (2-0) can’t go against Jim Beattie (0-1), then Tommy John, improving from the strained neck muscle that prevented him from pitching Tuesday night, or Urbano Lugo will. . . . Lugo, recalled with pitcher Stu Cliburn from Edmonton Wednesday, told the Angels that he wanted to be called by his first name of ‘Urbano’ rather than his middle name of ‘Rafael,’ which the media has been using. . . . Ken Forsch will pitch a five-inning simulated game tonight, the final step before his return from the disabled list. . . . Reggie Jackson reiterated in a San Francisco Chronicle column by Glenn Dickey Thursday that he is interested in eventually becoming part-owner of a baseball team and might be particularly interested in the Oakland A’s. Jackson implied before Thursday night’s game that he had been approached by a person interested in buying the A’s, but said he can’t get involved because of his commitment to the Angels and his desire to play another year or two. “If I get involved by 1986 it will be only because I can’t play anymore,” he said, then added: “I don’t want to buy the A’s. I can’t afford to buy the A’s. I can afford a 10% or 15% position. I’d be interested in becoming a minority owner. Baseball has been my life. It makes sense for me (to continue in it).” Commenting on the potential of the Oakland franchise, Jackson said: “I think it’s a good place if you put a winner on the field. I don’t think the Bay Area can support two teams. One has to move. I don’t think the Giants can draw two million even if they win a pennant because the ballpark is simply too cold.” . . . The Angels can apparently have relief pitcher Rod Scurry of Pittsburgh or Doug Bair of Detroit if they are willing to part with Mike Brown, a price they seem to deem too high for pitchers fitting General Manager Mike Port’s Wednesday statement that the “only pitchers we’re being offered are comparable to the 10th man on their respective staffs.”