Angels Put Mack Under Fire and Lose Again, 8-3

Pitcher Tony Mack was officially ushered into the Angels’ rookie rotation Saturday afternoon and, once again, youth was battered by the Toronto Blue Jays.

If Mack had been given the ability to pick his spots, it’s a good bet he wouldn’t have picked Exhibition Stadium in late July as the setting for his major league debut. The Blue Jays have won seven straight here, and the 8-3 loss they handed Mack and the Angels before a sellout crowd of 44,116 was just another rewrite of a week-old plot.

In fact, 8-3 was the same number Toronto pulled on the Angels Friday, when three other rookie pitchers (Urbano Lugo, Pat Clements and Stewart Cliburn) were rudely introduced to the concept of Pressure Baseball.

This is, after all, a matchup between the American League’s two division leaders. The Toronto newspapers have been hyping the four-game Blue Jay-Angel series as a preview of the American League playoffs.

Somebody had better remind the Angels. Not only have they lost the first three games here--equaling their longest losing streak of the season--but they have also played them in a manner that would suggest the Angels are getting an early start on the players’ strike.

The scores in Toronto have been 7-0, 8-3, 8-3. Playoff preview? If so, the World Series is going north of the border come October.

Mack, recalled from Edmonton Thursday to fill the roster spot vacated by disabled relief pitcher Doug Corbett, didn’t do anything to alter the Angels’ troubled course. He faced 14 batters, allowing eight hits and recording seven outs (two on a double play), before Manager Gene Mauch decided that a .500 success rate wasn’t cutting it.

By then, the Angels were down, 4-1. Mauch replaced Mack with Luis Sanchez, who went on to make it 8-3 by the seventh inning.

As debuts go, baseball has seen better and worse than Mack’s. Mauch was asked for his opinion.

“Not too good,” he said. “Not today. I imagine there was a certain amount of first-start nervousness.

“(But) he did go after them, he did throw the ball over the plate. I’ll give him credit for that.”

Of course, when Mack got the ball over the plate, a Blue Jay usually hit it. Some reached the Angel outfield, which resembled a carnival fun house during the early innings.

Tony Fernandez, Toronto’s second hitter of the game, hit a pop fly to center field that skipped under the glove of an onrushing Juan Beniquez for a double. George Bell’s RBI single made it 1-0.

After that, the Blue Jay batters directed their efforts toward right field. That’s where Reggie Jackson was stationed.

In the second inning, Jackson misplayed a fly ball by Willie Upshaw into a double. Running in and then stopping, Jackson let the ball bounce in front of him--and then over him--for extra bases. Upshaw later made it 2-0 on Ernie Whitt’s RBI single.

In the third inning, Rance Mulliniks sent another drive Jackson’s way. Apparently losing the ball in the sun, Jackson froze for an instant--long enough to let the ball bound past him for another double.

It was the start of a two-run inning for Toronto--and the beginning of the end for Mack.

Afterward, writers questioned Mauch about the two plays.

“What do you want me to say?” Mauch shot back. “If Reggie could catch those balls, he’d catch ‘em. Write what you saw.”

Mauch, of course, knew this spring what risk was involved when he chose to move the 39-year-old Jackson from designated hitter to right field. He knew there’d be days like this.

Mack, somewhat newer to the situation, spoke diplomatically about the plays in question.

“I don’t really want to comment on that,” Mack said. “The conditions today, the elements, it makes it tough to see at this time of the day. They were bad breaks that just happened. They (the Blue Jays) seem to be getting a lot of breaks.

“It didn’t upset my rhythm,” he said. “They did get some ground-ball hits, too, some eight-hoppers.”

And against Sanchez, the Blue Jays got more than that. Rookie Lou Thornton, who stole his first major league base in the second inning, hit his first big league home run off Sanchez in the fifth inning--a three-run shot that gave Toronto a 7-3 lead.

Two innings later, Jesse Barfield tripled with Whitt on base to make it 8-3.

The Angels scored their runs in the first and fourth innings. Rod Carew led off the game with a ground-rule double to left, his 2,993rd career hit, and came home on an RBI single by Ruppert Jones. Jones also had a run-scoring double in the fourth and scored on a single by Jackson.

All told, the Angels managed six hits against Toronto pitchers Tom Filer (2-0) and Jim Acker--not enough to combat eight runs.

“We have not been lucky with the bats this entire trip,” said Mauch, whose team dropped to 5-6 against Toronto this year and 4-6 on this trip. “And, usually, you play about the way you pitch. This series, we haven’t pitched that well.”

Mack said he was relieved to get his first start in the books and was hopeful of getting a second. Mauch indicated he would receive one.

“The next time out, there will be better results,” Mack said. “This club is in a pennant race. I’m not coming here just to hang on to a job. I think I can win with what I have.”

Those were words spoken with confidence, although Mack had to concede that “I would be telling a lie if I said I wasn’t nervous. . . . An hour before the game, I was thinking I just wanted to get it over with.”

If Mack was shaky, he wasn’t the only one. The same description could also apply to the Angels’ offense and defense.

“I think we all feel just about the same way Toronto felt at our park,” said Mauch, referring to the three straight games won in Anaheim by the Angels earlier this month. “They had three days (the All-Star break) to get themselves straightened out. We gotta keep grinding.”

Today, another rookie, Kirk McCaskill, takes his turn at stepping into the grinder.

Angel Notes

Thirty days have passed since Cleveland pitcher Bert Blyleven failed to clear waivers, meaning that the Indians can ask waivers on the veteran pitcher again. Angel General Manager Mike Port said negotiations for Blyleven are still under way. “Cleveland is a club we still stay in touch with,” Port said. Maybe in closer touch now, with the fifth spot in the team’s starting rotation still a problem? “I think we’re still looking (at Blyleven) in the same extent as before,” Port said. “There are the usual amount of ‘ifs’ involved--how Gene (Mauch) and Lach (pitching coach Marcel Lachemann) feel about (Tony) Mack’s outing today, what progress Geoff Zahn is making. And, in spite of his difficult two months, we can’t forget about Jim Slaton.” Port said the Aug. 6 strike date has become an added complication in trade talks. “Everybody wants to know if we’ll be playing past Aug. 6,” Port said. “If you trade for a player (i.e., a veteran such as Blyleven with trade approval power), and there’s a strike Aug. 7, in October, the player can demand a trade.” Thus, there’s the gamble of a team coming up empty-handed. . . . The sore right shoulder that forced Blue Jay starting pitcher Jim Clancy out of Friday night’s game in the fifth inning turned out to be more serious than originally thought. Saturday, Clancy was placed on the Blue Jays’ 15-day disabled list because of “biceps tendinitis.” Toronto filled his spot on the roster by purchasing pitcher Tom Henke’s minor league contract from Syracuse. . . . Dancing In the Park: Toronto left fielder George Bell ended the fourth inning by flaring a little cue shot toward first base. First baseman Rod Carew and pitcher Luis Sanchez gave chase. Carew grabbed the ball, and Sanchez, sidestepping out of the way, grabbed Bell. Sanchez and Bell wound up holding each other up and spinning around a couple of times, doing a tango down the first base line. . . . With his RBI double in the fourth inning, Toronto’s Al Oliver tied Billy Williams for 18th on the all-time doubles’ list at 525.