Milwaukee Serves New Nightmare for Mauch’s Collection

It ended Sunday with Rollie Fingers preserving Milwaukee’s 7-4 win over the Angels.

It ended with Angel Manager Gene Mauch, ejected in the eighth inning, saying that only the umpires execution was poorer than his team’s.

It ended with Mauch resisting an immediate decision on the future of Kirk McCaskill, who was charged with four walks, three hits and four runs as he drew his third straight loss.

It also ended with Mauch thinking back to the last time he had been at County Stadium.

That was the unhappy October of 1982 when his Angels lost three straight games and an American League pennant to the Brewers.

“I feel a hell of a lot better than the last time I was in this clubhouse,” Mauch said. “The last time we had to win one game and didn’t. This time we won two.”

It might have been the Angels’ first three-game sweep here since 1981 but a pair of fielding lapses contributed to a five-run Milwaukee fifth, capped by Cecil Cooper’s three-run homer off Pat Clements, who had replaced McCaskill.

It was Cooper who drove a stake in the Angels’ heart with his single off Luis Sanchez in Game 5 of the ’82 playoff, but this game evoked ’82 memories for another reason, as well.

The Angels, now two up on Minnesota in the American League West, trailed only 5-4 in the seventh. Doug Corbett had one out when Robin Yount hit a high drive to left. Brian Downing moved to the warning track, thinking suddenly how a fan in the bleachers had reached out and over the fence, taking the ball from Ben Oglivie’s glove in Game 3 of that playoff. Bob Boone, who hit it, was credited with a home run.

“It happens here all the time,” Downing said in the clubhouse Sunday. “The fence is low enough that I probably catch the ball without even jumping but I didn’t want to take the chance of a fan reaching over and the umpire calling it wrong.”

Downing tried to jump but lost his footing on a track dampened by a heavy rain during the night. He fell, thinking he had fractured the same left ankle he fractured in 1980.

TV replays showed that the ball caromed off the cushioned top of the fence and back into left field. A limping Downing now went after it but was called off by center-fielder Gary Pettis, who pointed to third base umpire Dave Phillips calling it a home run.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Downing said. “There was no way it was a home run.”

Mauch, already angry at the umpires, argued with Phillips, but got only a semi-apology and the admission, Mauch said, that he might have called it wrong.

“Too bad,” Downing said. “It was two runs.”

He alluded to his inability to make a catch that would have been the second out. The distracted Corbett then got Ted Simmons on a ground out, but Charlie Moore tripled and Paul Householder singled to give the Brewers a three-run cushion.

The end, however, might have played differently if Milwaukee had still led by only one when the Angels put their first two batters on in the ninth. Fingers replaced Bob Gibson and quickly got the final three outs, saving it for starter Moose Haas, who had yielded three runs in the fourth on a Juan Beniquez RBI single and a two-run homer by Ruppert Jones, his third.

The Angels, who collected 10 hits, scored again only in the seventh when Dick Schofield doubled off Gibson and continued around as Yount bobbled the ball in left.

McCaskill had taken the 3-0 lead into the fifth when Boone’s failure to hold the ball on a tag play at the plate and the ensuing failure of Beniquez to cover first properly on a bunt helped turn what might have been a scoreless inning into a 5-3 lead, Cooper ultimately hammering a Clements forkball into the right-field seats for his first home run.

The defensive breakdown displeased Mauch, who took solace in the fact that the Angels haven’t had many. McCaskill’s stuff and control (walk No. 4 got the Brewers going in the fifth) was another matter.

The 24-year-old right-hander has allowed 18 hits and 13 earned runs in the 14 innings of his three starts. The probability that neither Geoff Zahn nor Ken Forsch will be ready to return to the rotation soon has created an obvious problem. But Mauch said he didn’t have to make a decision on McCaskill’s next start for a week.

“He hasn’t pitched that effectively since his first time out,” Mauch said. “I didn’t think his stuff was that good today, and when you compound that by continually going to ball three, you’re asking for trouble.”

Mauch didn’t think much of the umpires either, particularly Steve Palermo, who was working second base and called an automatic double play in the sixth, citing Reggie Jackson for sliding out of the baseline in an attempt to break it up.

The call on Yount’s homer raised Mauch’s ire again in the seventh. He then got the thumb after making a facetious gesture toward Palermo in the eighth, when Downing broke up a double play with a slide similar to Jackson’s. This one was allowed.

Mauch said later he detests the attempt to put handcuffs on aggressiveness and that he found it unbelievable how an umpire can “strut around like he’s infallible,” how he could “maintain arrogance after making calls like that.”

“I saw Palermo when he broke in,” Mauch said. “The kid could flat out umpire. Now his personality has turned him into a run-of-the-mill umpire.”

The intensity showed on the Little General’s face, but he shook his head finally and said:

“The umpires didn’t lose this game. Cooper won it.”

In a stadium of haunted memories, this was not a first.

Angel Notes Doug DeCinces and Geoff Zahn returned to Orange County Sunday for additional examination today by Dr. Lewis Yocum. They will rejoin the Angels for Friday night’s homestand-opener with New York at Anaheim Stadium. . . . DeCinces left Friday night’s game with a back spasm in the first inning and was unable to play Saturday night. “I’ve obviously been worse, but I don’t want to take a chance and push it,” he said Sunday. “We have off days tomorrow and Thursday. If Dr. Yocum decides that I need a shot, then I’ll definitely be ready Friday. I don’t like leaving the team, but as Gene (Mauch) says, we’ve got 130 games left. I can take six days to get ready at home and miss only three games. The schedule makes the decision a little easier.” . . . Zahn, hopeful of being back throwing now and ready to come off the disabled list May 15, remains discouraged by the lack of improvement in his shoulder tendinitis. “I haven’t done anything and it still hurts,” Zahn had said Sunday. . . . Rod Carew was sidelined again Sunday by his swollen left foot and may have a cat-scan in Anaheim Thursday unless it improves in Toronto, where the Angels play Tuesday and Wednesday nights. . . . Pete Vuckovich, hit hard by the Angels in his last two starts, was put on Milwaukee’s 21-day disabled list with a strained right shoulder. Vuckovich missed most of the 1983 and ’84 seasons with a shoulder injury. He will be replaced as a starter by Ted Higuera. . . . Juan Beniquez celebrates his 35th birthday today. . . . Gary Pettis stole second in the third inning Sunday, giving him 20 straight steals this year and 22 over the last two years. He’s stolen six bases in six games with Milwaukee this year.