American League / Ross Newhan : Can Blue Jays Fly Through Long, Hot Summer?

In their bid to compete with the Detroit Tigers and the other Eastern powers, the Toronto Blue Jays made the mandatory winter moves.

Outfielder Dave Collins and shortstop Alfredo Griffin were sent to Oakland for right-handed relief ace Bill Caudill. Pitcher Jim Gott was sent to San Francisco for a left-handed reliever, Gary Lavelle.

The Blue Jays suffered more late-inning setbacks last season than any team east of Anaheim. The obviously improved bullpen is receiving credit for Toronto’s rise to the top in the East. The credit may belong to Detroit.

Consider: The Blue Jays are 31-15, which is what they were last year after 46 games. They then trailed the Tigers, who were 36-9, by 5 1/2 games. The Tigers are 25-20 and trail Toronto by 5 1/2.

“The games behind has no meaning,” Tiger Manager Sparky Anderson said Saturday. “It’s the way we’re going about it that concerns me.”

The Angels’ patchwork lineup had just defeated Dan Petry after beating Jack Morris Friday night. Walks, errors and offensive inconsistency have betrayed the Tigers, who are tired of comparisons to last year, but who must now put their pride on the line.

“Yes,” Anderson agreed, “now we start to separate. Now we find the guys who will stand and the guys who will fall.

“Last year I had no idea how we’d protect the lead. There was a time I thought we’d collapse, but we reacted very well. I have no idea how we’ll react this time.

“This is shock. Next comes embarrassment. Pride is our only salvation.”

There’s that, and this:

--Toronto is attempting to negotiate the long summer with an iron-man nucleus of Willie Upshaw, Lloyd Moseby, George Bell, Tony Fernandez and Damaso Garcia, who have yet to miss a game.

--The Blue Jays have never gone through this before, never been out there alone.

“Toronto in August, can they pass that test?” Anderson asked. “Whoever gets close can beat them. It does tricks on your mind when you’ve been out there in first place the whole season. Can you take it? My kids handled that better than I did last year, and I’d been there four times before.”

The Tigers and Blue Jays open a four-game series Thursday. Anderson said he welcomed help from the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees. He said he doesn’t want the Blue Jays buying time, getting a chance to rest the regulars in preparation for August.

“The hardest thing to do is win it the first time,” he said. “Staying there.”

Will President Reagan’s proposed tax plan disallow the purchase of season tickets as a justifiable entertainment expense for corporations? Baseball’s owners are assuming it will and are prepared to lobby against it.

Most clubs estimate that corporations comprise at least 50% of their season sales. The loss of that revenue, they predict privately, would result in an increase in ticket prices and/or a series of decreased offers to the players in collective bargaining negotiations.

Having batted .349, .361 and .325 in his first three seasons, Wade Boggs is at it again.

He is hitting .309, once again inscribing his name among the league leaders.

More surprising is the fact that Boggs’ name also keeps appearing in reported trade rumors.

The Boston Red Sox hope to move Boggs before the June 15 trading deadline in a bid to strengthen their pitching and create a third base vacancy for rookie Steve Lyons.

Of the seldom-used Lyons, Manager John McNamara said this week: “I’ve seen enough to know the guy is a winner.”

Among the club’s reportedly interested in Boggs are the Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago White Sox.

If it happens, however, Boggs should hire a moving company large enough to transport Fenway Park.

He has a career average of .376 at Fenway and a 1985 average there of .435 contrasted with a .233 mark on the road.

Boggs has missed only 17 games in the last three seasons, each time because of a bad back, which only seems to affect him when his team is traveling. He has not missed a game at Fenway in that span.

At that, however, his statistics are in keeping with a long familiar Red Sox pattern.

The 1985 team is hitting .313 with a 29-9 record at Fenway contrasted with a .231 average and a 10-16 record on the road.

Ex-St. Louis Cardinal Lonnie Smith was batting only .182 for his first 10 games with the Kansas City Royals but had turned his seven hits, four walks and a hit by pitch into seven stolen bases and nine runs scored.

“(Manager) Dick Howser wants me to run as much as I can,” Smith said, “and that’s what I’m going to do.

“I’m going to find out how good some of these guys (American League catchers) can throw.”

Smith hits second in the Royals’ lineup, just behind another speed burner, Willie Wilson, and just ahead of George Brett, who responded to Smith’s arrival with his hottest streak of the year.

Brett batted .415 over the 10 games, collecting 17 hits and 17 runs batted in. Wilson and Smith scored 12 of those 17 runs.

“One of them is always on third base,” Brett said. “I don’t have to get a hit to score ‘em.”

In the 10 games, Brett went to bat five times with a runner at third and scored all five. He was an overall 8 for 14 with runners in scoring position, driving the Royals to the top of the AL West.

Add Brett: “The integrity of all professional sports is being challenged by drugs,” he said the other day. “I don’t like the idea (of mandatory testing), but if testing will establish integrity, I have to be for it.”

Add Wilson, on the artistic recent pitching of Royals’ left-hander Charlie Leibrandt: “That’s not Leibrandt, it’s Rembrandt.”

Shortly after releasing veteran infielder Todd Cruz, the Orioles received a call from Cruz’s agent, saying his client, anxious to re-establish his career, would gratefully accept a minor league position.

The sympathetic Orioles complied, assigning Cruz to their Triple-A Rochester team last week.

In five games there, Cruz ran up a $164 hotel bill on his first night, arrived at the park late for each game, went to a hot dog stand between innings of one game rather than rejoining his team on the field, and was an overall 1 for 11.

Todd Cruz is again out of work.

It has taken the Minnesota Twins only two months to manufacture two nine-game losing streaks and a 10-game winning streak.

Said Manager Billy Gardner: “There’s a very simple reason for the streaks--pitching. Our starting pitching has been inconsistent, but our bullpen has been terrible.”

Some statistics:

Ron Guidry is 68-22, a .755 percentage, under Billy Martin and 70-43, a .619 percentage, under other Yankee managers.

Said Martin: “He’s had his best years under me, and I’ve had my best years with him.”

Harold Baines, the White Sox bellwether, was 0 for 24 going before going 4 for 9 in the last two games. He was also 1 for 38 and 2 for 43 with only 2 RBIs since May 15.

Said Manager Tony LaRussa: “I wish someone would guarantee me that my only problem will be whether Harold hits. I’d spend my playoff money right now.”