This Time, Angels Play 2-Plus: Win in 12, Then Lose

Five games in three days were not enough.

The Angels and Seattle Mariners required 12 innings to decide the first game of a Wednesday doubleheader that was the second twin bill of the exhausting series.

The box score will show that the Angels won, 3-1--before losing the second game, 6-1--and that their win in the 3-hour 31-minute opener went to Stewart Cliburn, who is 7-2 with three saves and an earned-run average of 1.87.

It was a familiar script. Consider:

--The Angels have a 9-2 record in extra innings.

--Four of Cliburn’s wins have come in games of 12 innings or longer.

The rookie right-hander was recently dubbed The Marathon Man, of which Cliburn said:

“I don’t mind that, but just get my real name in, too.”

Cliburn’s 3 shutout innings proved again that he’s for real. It followed an equally impressive starting stint by fellow rookie Kirk McCaskill, who had a no-hitter through six innings.

Donnie Moore eventually earned his 22nd save by pitching the Mariner 12th as the Angels’ combined nine-hitter overshadowed the brilliance of Mike Moore, whose 11-inning stint as the Seattle starter was the longest in club history.

“There were some great arms out there,” Angel Manager Gene Mauch said between games. “If someone had to waste that kind of pitching, better them than us.”

Seattle got more good pitching in the second game--and didn’t waste it.

Jim Beattie and Jack Lazorko allowed only six hits, while the Angels’ Geoff Zahn failed to get past the fifth inning for the third time in three starts since coming off the disabled list.

The split left the Angels 2 1/2 games ahead of Kansas City and 4 ahead of Oakland in the American League West. It also sent them home with a 4-5 record for this strange journey through the great indoors of Minnesota and Seattle.

They had won Wednesday’s opener when the Mariners’ Edwin Nunez succeeded Moore at the start of the 12th and promptly permitted consecutive doubles by Gary Pettis and Rod Carew, breaking a 1-1 tie. A one-out single by Ruppert Jones provided a cushion.

The Mariners’ Moore, who was 10-7 for the season and 1-6 in his career against the Angels, struck out 12, walked two (one intentionally) and scattered nine hits.

The Angels scored only in the second inning, when Bob Boone singled home Reggie Jackson, who had doubled and advanced to third base on a single by Jack Howell.

McCaskill, in turn, faced the minimum of 18 batters through six innings, helped by double plays that erased a third-inning error and a fifth-inning walk. The developing drama ended when Jack Perconte opened the seventh with a clean single to right field.

Phil Bradley’s ensuing bunt single and Alvin Davis’ single loaded the bases with no outs. McCaskill then got Gorman Thomas on a fly to medium left and watched Jones throw out Perconte at the plate.

“I couldn’t believe he’d try,” McCaskill said later. “I thought I was out of the inning, but I made a mistake to (Al) Cowens.”

The mistake was putting a cut fastball in a position where Cowens could line it for the game-tying single.

McCaskill ultimately left with two out in the eighth, having allowed only 10 hits and three runs in the 25 innings of his last three starts. His 0-4 debut with the Angels is even more of a distant memory.

Cliburn, who has become a contender for the league’s rookie-pitcher-of-the-year award, struck out five and yielded three hits in his 3 innings. He has registered three wins and a save in his last six assignments, allowing one earned run in 17 innings.

Of Cliburn’s effectiveness in extra innings, Mauch said: “I don’t know that he thrives on it, but he definitely responds to it.”

The Angels failed to respond in their 6-1 loss in the nightcap.

Beattie, a victim of two April drubbings by the Angels and carrying a 7.76 earned-run average, allowed just three hits in six innings, leaving because he has yet to rebuild his stamina following a stint on the disabled list for back spasms. The Angels got an unearned run off the recently purchased Lazorko in the seventh, but nothing more.

Zahn pitched 4 innings, yielding six hits and four runs. Cowens hit a two-run homer in the fifth, two innings after a pair of doubles, two walks and a Cowens single had led to three runs in the third.

Zahn, who was sidelined for 85 games because of tendinitis in his shoulder, has permitted 22 hits and 14 earned runs in the 12 innings of his three recent starts. Jim Slaton, who started the second game of Monday’s doubleheader, pitched 1 innings in relief of Zahn, after which a Bradley triple led to a final run off Luis Sanchez in the seventh.

The merciful conclusion came at 7:30 Wednesday night, about 7 hours after Mike Moore had made the day’s first pitch.

Angel Notes The Angels are off today and open a 12-game home stand, the season’s longest, Friday night against Oakland. The A’s are in for four games, then New York and Detroit for three each, and Baltimore for two. . . . Rob Wilfong struck out three straight times in the first game, extending his string of consecutive strikeouts to six, which is believed to be a club record. A quick check by the Angel publicity department showed that Billy Cowens struck out five straight times in an extra-inning game at Oakland in 1971. . . . Wilfong yielded to pinch-hitter Brian Downing in the ninth and did not play the second game. The pinch-hitting Downing was hit by a pitch, his 15-game hitting streak surviving until the second game, when he was 0 for 5. . . . Was Kirk McCaskill thinking of his no-hit bid? He said a fan behind the Seattle dugout yelled reminders at him after every pitch, beginning about the fourth inning. “I tried not to think about it,” he said, “but I couldn’t help it. I tried to keep telling myself that my No. 1 priority was the close game, but I can’t say that I wasn’t thinking about it.” . . . Doug DeCinces, who had a career batting average of .652 (15 for 23) against Mike Moore, was 0 for 4 this time. . . . Jack Howell had two hits in the opener, a pinch single in the second game and is 6 for 13 since his Monday recall from Edmonton.