Baseball Roundup : Higuera Deals Yanks a Crushing Blow, 1-0

Valenzuela is a good name for a pitcher. There is Fernando Valenzuela, who has been doing rather well for the Dodgers for several seasons.

And then, there is Teodoro (Ted) Valenzuela Higuera, a left-handed pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers, who is almost certain to be the American League’s Rookie of the Year.

The 26-year-old Higuera is not likely to forget the final performance of his first major league season.

It isn’t just that he won his 15th victory Wednesday night at New York, it’s the way he did it. Higuera pitched the Brewers to a 1-0 victory over the Yankees and dealt a severe blow to New York’s AL East title hopes. With Toronto losing, the Yankees could have pulled within three games of first place. Instead, they remain four games back, and the Blue Jays’ magic number is just two.

Evidently, New York fans have already given up. There were only 11,879 on hand to see Higuera pitch a six-hitter and strike out eight. He stifled the top two hitters in the lineup, Rickey Henderson and Don Mattingly, four times each.

Higuera, like Valenzuela, is a native of Mexico. Also, like Valenzuela, he needs an interpreter for interviews. Unlike the Dodger ace, Higuera’s best pitch is his fastball.

He is a little late starting in the majors because he spent six seasons in the Mexican League. The Brewers bought him at the end of the 1983 season. After a season in Double-A minor league ball and a couple of weeks of Triple-A, he made the jump to the American League.

Higuera was only 4-4 going into July. His shutout of the Yankees gave him an 11-4 record in the second half of the season.

Earlier this month he beat the Yankees, 4-3, giving up two earned runs and six hits, and he split two with Toronto, beating them, 2-1, on a five-hitter.

“If you throw strikes, you’re going to get outs,” Higuera told the Associated Press through first baseman Carlos Ponce, serving as an interpreter. “And, if you keep the ball low, you’ll do well. It’s the best game I ever pitched.”

Grudgingly, Yankee Manager Billy Martin acknowledged: “He’s won 15 games. He must be doing something right against everybody.”

Detroit 4, Toronto 2--Darrell Evans became the first player ever to hit 40 home runs in both major leagues in this game at Detroit. Kirk Gibson followed Evans’ blow with an inside-the-park homer to help the Tigers beat the Blue Jays for the second night in a row.

Jack Morris, pitching despite a sore throat, held the Blue Jays to five hits in seven innings to win his 16th. Dave Stieb gave up just three hits in addition to the two home runs, but his record fell to 14-13.

Evans, at 38 is the oldest player to hit 40 in the American League. He hit No. 40 on Stieb’s first pitch of the sixth inning to make it a 3-1 game. Henry Aaron was 39 when he hit 40 home runs in 1973, the year Evans hit 41 for the same Atlanta Braves.

A victory would have clinched a tie for the title for the Blue Jays.

Toronto Manager Bobby Cox brightened only a little when he learned the Yankees had lost.

“The shame of it is that we could have had the magic number down to one,” Cox said. “We swung at too many bad pitches. We wasted five-hit pitching. You can’t do that. We just didn’t get any runs.

“You just get ticked off when you lose. You’d do that even if you were in last place.”

The Blue Jays, who finish up the season this weekend with three games against the Yankees at Toronto, have not lost more than two in a row since the All-Star game.

Minnesota 3, Chicago White Sox 1--Frank Viola pitched a three-hitter at Minneapolis and became the winningest left-hander in the majors this season with his 18th.

Montreal 3-1, Philadelphia 2-3--Bryn Smith won his 18th in the opener at Montreal, and Charles Hudson pitched a six-hitter in the second game to end the Phillies’ 11-game losing streak.