Blyleven Gets Good Start, but It’s Not Good Enough

It was a new-look Bert Blyleven who took the mound for the Minnesota Twins against the Angels Saturday night at Anaheim Stadium.

Gone was Blyleven’s beard, which he has worn off and on for the past eight years. He shaved it Saturday because of the Twins’ team policy barring beards. And gone was the Cleveland Indians uniform, which Blyleven exchanged for the Twins uniform after being traded from Cleveland to Minnesota Thursday.

Blyleven’s pitching fortunes, however, seemed to remain the same.

Blyleven, who lost his share of one-run games with the Indians during the past five years, found himself on the wrong end of another close encounter Saturday night, as Doug DeCinces’ two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning gave the Angels a 5-4 win over the Twins in front of 40,290 fans.

But this time, Blyleven had only himself to blame. He could not pin the loss on a lack of offensive support, which often was the case at Cleveland. He couldn’t blame the Twins’ defense, which leads the American League in fielding percentage and made several fine plays behind Blyleven Saturday night.

Nope, this one was all Bert’s.

“I just made a couple of bad pitches,” said Blyleven, who also yielded a two-run homer to Ruppert Jones in the fourth inning. “I wanted to get the ball down on DeCinces, but I got it right in his wheelhouse. I made a bad pitch to Jones, too.”

Those were about the only mistakes Blyleven (9-12) made Saturday night. Otherwise, he threw a masterful five-hitter and retired the side in order in six of nine innings. He increased his major league-leading complete-game total to 16.

But it marked the first time Blyleven had lost to the Angels since June 10, 1981. He was 5-0 against the Angels since. Still, his performance Saturday night drew rave reviews from, of all people, DeCinces.

“In my opinion, Bert is one of the best pitchers in the game of baseball, especially in this ballpark,” DeCinces said. “I think he really gets pumped up when he comes here because he lives right around the corner.”

Blyleven, who grew up in Garden Grove and lives in Villa Park during the off-season, was just glad to be in Anaheim Saturday night, even though it wasn’t under the best possible circumstances.

He would have preferred to have been traded to a contending team, especially the first-place Angels, and with Minnesota trailing California by 12 games in the American League West, the Twins may have too much ground to make up this season.

But it sure beats pitching for the Indians, who are 34-69 and trail the Toronto Blue Jays by 32 games in the East.

“Losing so many games made this season the most frustrating part of my career, but the guys on the (Cleveland) team made it bearable,” Blyleven said. “They have some guys with talent. The organization didn’t stress winning, but the guys wanted to win.

“They did everything right until the other team showed up. The talent was there, and I’m not trying to degrade them, but we played some bad games.”

Blyleven, who began his career with the Twins and also played for the Texas Rangers and Pittsburgh Pirates before moving to Cleveland in 1981, never felt he belonged with the Indians.

He thought Cleveland was building a team around its younger players. One that might contend four years from now. He didn’t feel himself a part of the Indians’ plans.

“That’s why we (Blyleven and agent Dick Moss) asked them to trade me,” Blyleven said.

That move came Thursday when Blyleven was acquired in a waiver deal with the Indians. Blyleven was purchased for the waiver price of $20,000, while the Twins sold pitcher Curt Wardle, outfielder Jim Weaver and infielder Jay Bell to the Indians for $20,000.

“Minnesota was definitely my second choice,” the 34-year-old right-hander said. “It would have been nice to pitch here (for the Angels), but maybe it was never in the cards for me to come back.”

The move will obviously bolster the Twins’ pitching staff, which has a team earned-run average of 4.73 and only three pitchers with winning records.

“I figured if we could improve our pitching 20% we’d be a contender, and Bert will certainly help there,” Minnesota Coach Ray Miller said. “We lead the league in defense and are hitting .263 as a club. That’s pretty good. Bert has pitched a lot of 2-1 and 3-1 games for Cleveland, so hopefully we’ll be able to get him a few more runs.”

The Twins couldn’t get him enough Saturday night, or rather, Blyleven couldn’t keep the Angels from scoring enough. But Miller was still impressed.

“I hate to see him have to lose a game after giving us such a good start,” he said. “He pitched a great game.”

Just not good enough.