There’s Just No Hiding the Angels’ Power in 8-3 Win Over Boston

Boston second baseman Marty Barrett pulled a hidden ball trick on Bobby Grich in the second inning Sunday, but the Red Sox couldn’t hide the ball forever.

The torrid firm of Jackson and Jones--Reggie and Ruppert--led a 12-hit assault that buried Boston, 8-3, and sustained the Angels’ offensive awakening.

An Anaheim Stadium crowd of 31,383 saw Jones hit two homers and Jackson one in support of a nine-hitter by Kirk McCaskill, who was once 0-4 and is now 4-5.

The Angels have a four-game lead over the Oakland A’s in the American League West, having won five of their last six games while also collecting 10 or more hits in 11 of their last 14.

The Angels have lifted their once league-low team batting average from .232 to .248 by hitting .295 over the last 20 games and a robust .365 in the last 12.

Said Jackson Sunday:

“Winning the way we are now, we know we’re good. It builds confidence.

“No team is a great team until it wins it all, but right now we’re playing great baseball.

“There’s not much we can’t do. We play good defense and have good pitching. If we continue to get a little offense, we’ll be tough to beat.”

Jackson hit a two-run homer to make it 4-1 in the fourth after Jones hit a solo homer to snap a 1-1 tie in the second.

Jones came back in the sixth to take the club home run lead away from Jackson with a two-run drive to dead center, making it 8-1.

Now averaging a home run every 12.7 at-bats, Jones has 14. He is also second on the club to Jackson with 40 RBIs, is batting .356 in his last nine games and has reached base via a hit or walk on 12 of his last 13 trips to the plate, including the last 10 in a row.

“Detroit’s loss,” Jackson said of Jones, a bargain acquisition as a free agent, “is our gain.”

Jackson has 13 homers and 42 RBIs. Six of the homers and 21 of the RBIs have come in the last 22 games, a span in which Jackson has batted .324 for a season’s average of .261.

After hitting ahead of Jones Sunday, Jackson said a positive competition has developed, much as he enjoyed with various other hitters in Oakland, Baltimore and New York.

“I told Ruppert on the bench today,” Jackson said with a smile, “that he better keep the hammer out, that I was going to hunt him down. I don’t have to worry about hitting .300 like some guys. I’m thinking home run all the time.”

Jones hit his first homer and Jackson his only homer off Boston starter Jim Dorsey, who had allowed six hits and six runs by the time he left in the fourth.

A former Angel farm prospect who has spent the better part of 10 pro seasons in the minors, the 30-year-old Dorsey was a late replacement for Roger Clemens, who had made only two appearances in June because of a shoulder problem that forced the Red Sox to send him back to Boston Sunday.

Dorsey had made only one appearance since his recent recall amid a string of Boston injuries. He took a 32.40 earned-run average into his fifth big league start.

“We caught them in a tough situation with their pitching staff,” Angel Manager Gene Mauch said of the three wins in four games with Boston, “and the guys capitalized good. Winning teams do capitalize on an advantage when they show up.”

Aided by nine walks Sunday, the California attack also included an RBI double by Dick Schofield and two key hits by Brian Downing: a two-run single in the fourth and a bunt single in the second. However, the impact of the Schofield double in the wake of three singles was diluted by Barrett’s hidden ball trick on Grich.

Grich had opened the inning with a single and had taken second on Downing’s ensuing bunt.

Barrett had covered first on that play and kept the ball as he walked toward second, where Grich took a lead while looking to third base coach Moose Stubing for a sign. Dorsey, who would have been cited for a balk had he stepped on the rubber without the ball, waited on the grass behind the mound as Barrett applied the tag.

In a position where he could laugh later, Grich said: “I figure I’m still one ahead of the game. I’ve caught two guys (with the hidden ball trick) and been caught once. Barrett said he learned it from me, watching TV when he was in junior high. I guess the student caught the professor.”

It was a slick catch, but Angel third baseman Doug DeCinces made a series of them in support of McCaskill, who has allowed three runs or less in six of his last seven starts.

The Angels, 12 games over .500 at 46-34, are on a pace projecting to 92 to 94 wins, of which Mauch said: “I’d like to have 94 in the bank, but that’s all premature. We haven’t even played half our games yet.”

Twenty-four hours premature.

Barring rain, the Angels will reach the halfway point against the Milwaukee Brewers tonight.

Angel Notes

Asked what his teammates’ reaction was to being caught by the hidden ball trick, Bobby Grich said: “No one knew what to say. I figured that if I got off the field as fast as I could it would shorten my embarrassment.” . . . Said Gene Mauch, a master of such chicanery: “I blame myself. I know where the ball is all the time. I was giving Moose (Stubing) a sign and didn’t even look at (Marty) Barrett. I was disappointed with myself.” . . . Of Kirk McCaskill, Mauch said, “The thing that has impressed me most about all our young pitchers is the second time they see a team they’re as good or better than the first time. That indicates that their success is not just because they’re new.” . . . Of Wade Boggs, who went 6 for 16 in the series and emerged hitting .335, Mauch said: “If anyone knows how to get Wade Boggs out, I’ve got a new Hart Schaffner and Marx suit. Louis Roth? OK, Louis Roth.” . . . Daryl Sconiers was replaced as the designated hitter in the fifth inning because of a sore right wrist. . . . Mauch has used 78 lineups in 80 games.