It’s No Fluke, Angels Beat the Red Sox, 3-2

The Angels Friday stepped gingerly onto a Fenway Park field that seemed to have been booby-trapped the night before, not expecting the worst because they figured they had already been through it.

Right away, they were greeted by a booming double to the deepest part of the park by Dwight Evans and a blast into the right-field seats by Bill Buckner.

Right away, Angel Manager Gene Mauch had an inkling that things were going to be OK.

“I wasn’t worried, because they were hitting the ball well tonight,” Mauch said. “The double and the home run, they were hit hard.”

Both were normal type of hits, producing normal type of runs. Those, Mauch and the Angels can deal with.

And once they were able to engage the Boston Red Sox in a normal type of game, the Angels had the wherewithal--Ron Romanick, Donnie Moore and Bob Boone--to fashion a 3-2 victory in front of 31,368 fans, the type of victory that has become the norm for the leaders of the American League West this summer.

This time, there were no flukes or dying fly balls or hit-’em-where-they-ain’t numbers--the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not attack that the Red Sox trotted out for their 10-1 victory in Thursday’s series opener.

This time, it came down to pitching and defense and one-run managerial strategy. In other words, Little Ball.

The Red Sox played into the Angels’ hands, and found themselves beaten on all three counts.

Pitching: Romanick (11-4) outdueled Boston’s Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd (11-8), allowing just two runs and five hits through eight innings and keeping things under control until Moore could come on to wrap up his 18th save.

Defense: Provided most noticeably by catcher Boone, whose pickoff throws resulted twice in successful rundowns against the Red Sox’s Steve Lyons--one following Lyons’ leadoff double in the eighth inning.

Strategy: After Boston’s Wade Boggs opened the ninth with a single to left, extending his hitting streak to 22 games, Red Sox Manager John McNamara asked power-hitting Jim Rice to lay down a sacrifice bunt. Rice fouled off two weak bunt attempts before striking out. When Moore retired the next two hitters, the game was history, and the Angels’ lead in the AL West was back to six games.

One-run games apparently suit the Angels well. Don’t ask them to slug it out with anybody, even in a pinball park like Fenway. When things got out of hand early in Thursday’s Red Sox rout, it was pretty obvious that they would stay out of hand.

But in close games, the Angels thrive. Maybe all that suspense is what’s needed to get the adrenaline pumping in all those old arteries.

Whatever, the Angels are 22-7 in one-run games, a winning percentage of .758.

As Boone was discussing the latest victory with a handful of reporters, Doug DeCinces poked his head into the group and asked: “Don’t you think he called a better game tonight than last night?”

That brought a laugh, as was the intention. The Angels could laugh about that freaky 10-1 defeat, now that another one-run victory had come along to ease the embarrassment.

Boone’s pitch selection may have had something to do with the reversal. For certain, his arm was a factor.

In the fifth inning, Lyons reached base on a one-out infield single. With Marty Barrett at bat, Boone outguessed Lyons--calling for a pitchout while Lyons was considering a steal attempt.

Lyons found himself in a rundown, and was tagged out by first baseman Rod Carew.

In the eighth, with the Angels protecting a 3-2 advantage, Lyons led off with a double to right. He didn’t stay on second long.

Boone caught him leaning toward third and rifled the ball to shortstop Dick Schofield, who started another rundown that resulted in another out.

It was a big play. “You have to figure,” Mauch said, “that that was the ballgame.”

Romanick echoed the same. “It gave me a big lift,” he said.

Boone simply shrugged and said: “It gets the tying run on second. That’s all the lift you need, especially when you’re running out of innings. The next inning, they gotta have Rice bunt.”

In a way, Boone’s pickoff in the eighth inning forced McNamara’s hand in the ninth. Had the Red Sox been able to tie it in the eighth, they could have played the final inning more aggressively.

Instead, McNamara played by the book and played for a tie--calling for Rice to bunt with Boggs on first and none out. Rice left the mission unaccomplished.

“That’s one of those things that makes a manager’s job so tough,” Boone said. “The rule of thumb is that at home, you play for the tie. I think you have to credit the team that put the other in that situation.

“I can see his (McNamara’s) thinking on it. It’s one of those gray areas that leaves a manager open to second-guessing.”

Mauch: “I know what John was trying to do. He was trying to get down to (No. 5 hitter Mike) Easler without a double play ball. (Rice has hit into 29 double plays in 1985.) Easler beat Donnie Moore in Anaheim with a triple down the line.”

There would be no repeat Friday. Easler ended the game by hitting a grounder to Bobby Grich, who flipped the ball to Schofield for a force on Boggs.

Schofield and Boone also contributed offensively to the Angels’ victory. In the third inning, they erased a 2-0 deficit when Boone singled to center and Schofield followed with his seventh home run of the season, a shot over the Green Monster in left.

The Angels scored the game-winner in the sixth on Brian Downing’s fielder’s-choice grounder with the bases loaded, scoring DeCinces from third.

That gave the Angels a one-run edge and brought on a familiar equation: Romanick plus Moore after an Angel defeat equals an Angel victory.

Nine times this season, Romanick has been called upon following an Angel setback. His record as a slump stopper: 7-2.

And for the sixth time this year, Moore was on hand to finish up a Romanick victory.