Red Sox Turn It Around for 7-5 Win Over Angels

After Friday night’s 13-4 win over the Boston Red Sox, someone asked Bobby Grich if the game marked some sort of turning point for Angel hitters.

“Hey, this is baseball,” he protested. “It can all change in one day.”

For two hours Saturday, there was no change: The Angel veterans were hitting the ball all over the park. Reggie Jackson had a two-run homer, and Rod Carew was on his way to his second three-hit game in a row. And most encouraging of all, the Angels had a 5-1 lead in the sixth and a rested bullpen just waiting to move in with another spectacular performance.

But as Grich said. . . .

Suddenly, the Red Sox rallied for three runs in the sixth, two in the seventh and one in the eighth--pushing around the Angels’ elite relief corps in the process--and came away with a 7-5 win before 26,952 fans at Anaheim Stadium.

Stewart Cliburn got the loss, and Donnie Moore, the ace of the bullpen, gave up a two-run triple to designated hitter Mike Easler to give Boston the lead.

The only sound in the Angel clubhouse late Saturday afternoon was the occasional thud of a glove being thrown into a locker. You’d think this was a team that had just lost the pennant, not a team that still led the American League West by three games.

That fact didn’t seem to soothe Angel Manager Gene Mauch, however. Asked the most upsetting aspect of the loss, he quickly replied: “The score.”

“Moore did his job,” he said. “You can’t expect him to go out there time after time and not expect something to go wrong sometimes.

“The Red Sox hitters are like ours. You can slow them down, but you’re not going to stop them day after day.”

Four Angel pitchers--starter Jim Slaton, Cliburn, Moore and Luis Sanchez--didn’t even break the Red Sox stride Saturday. Boston had a hit in every inning except the ninth, collecting 16 in all. They scored once in the first on two singles and a wild pitch by Slaton, then erupted in the sixth.

The Angels were looking like a team on a roll in the early going of the 3 1/2-hour contest. They scored twice in the fourth on a walk to Jackson, a double by Ruppert Jones and run-scoring ground outs by Grich and DeCinces.

The Angels padded their lead in the fifth after Carew picked up his second of three singles (he’s 23 hits shy of 3,000) and Jackson followed with a line-drive homer to left-center. The Angels got one more on singles by Jones and Grich and a fielding error by Jim Rice, the second error in two games for the left fielder.

Jackson, who has 12 home runs this year and 515 in his career, is now 20th on the all-time RBI list with 1,556, passing Willie McCovey. He called the pitch he hit off Boston starter Mike Trujillo “an old man’s pitch.”

“They throw me fastballs now,” Jackson said, smiling. “They’re afraid the old man will hit a change-up. I don’t even have to pull the ball anymore.”

Trujillo got the final out of the fifth, but he gave way to Bob Stanley to begin the sixth. Stanley, who Mauch says “does a number on everyone he faces,” yielded just two hits the rest of the way to even his record at 4-4.

“We’ve got the type of club that can come back . . . that can put numbers on the board in a hurry,” said Boston Manager John McNamara, whose team had lost 13 of its previous 17 games. “But we got good pitching from Stanley today, and that was the key.”

The Red Sox lead the league in average, hits, doubles and on-base percentage, and they padded their leads in every category Saturday.

Wade Boggs opened the sixth with a single to center and scored one out later on Bill Buckner’s double into the right-field corner. Then Easler picked up his first of three RBIs with a double into the gap in right-center. Mauch pulled Slaton in favor of Cliburn, who gave up an RBI-single to catcher Rich Gedman before getting out of the inning.

The Angels still had a 5-4 lead when Moore came on with two out and two on in the seventh and a chance for save No. 17. But Easler quickly turned the game around, tripling into the right-field corner.

“Donnie Moore is a tough pitcher,” Easler said. “He just made a mistake, and I stayed on it. We knew we’d come back. These are some hitters.”

Angel Notes The Angels increased their major league leading double play total to 110, by turning two Saturday. The second was far from your run of the mill, shortstop-to-second-to-first variety, though. With one out in the fifth, Boston had runners on first and second when Dwight Evans hit a little pop foul down the third base line. Angel third baseman Doug DeCinces made a fine over-the-shoulder catch, whirled and tossed the ball to catcher Bob Boone, who had moved up to cover third. Boone whirled and saw Marty Barrett, who thought the ball might drop in fair ground, retreating to first. Boone’s throw to Rod Carew got there first, and the Angels had No. 110 the hard way. . . . Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner thinks the Angels would be a team to be reckoned with in postseason games. “They’re missing (Gary) Pettis, but when he returns they’ll be real dangerous,” he said. “They will be the team to beat.” . . . Saturday marked the ninth time in the last 11 games that the Angels have had 10 or more hits. . . . Bob Boone’s eighth-inning single snapped an 0-for-18 drought. . . . Dwight Evans’ eighth-inning single brought home Steve Lyons to give Evans 800 career RBIs.