ANGEL RELIEF IS SPELLED OUT : Moore, Cliburn, Lucas: Triple Bullpen Threat

To gain a fuller appreciation of the bullpen staff the Angels have assembled for 1986, one must sift through the ashes of yesteryear, recalling a group of men who saw defeat in victory, despair in the ninth inning and disaster in a tied ballgame with runners in scoring position.

Yes, one must recall the Arson Squad.

The images are burned into the memories of Angel fans everywhere.

Remember relief pitcher Luis Sanchez hanging one too high and too long around home plate for Milwaukee’s Cecil Cooper in Game 5 of the 1982 American League playoffs? Remember Cooper lashing that pitiful pitch for a two-run single in the bottom of the seventh inning, crushing the best World Series hopes the Angels have ever entertained?

Remember Dick Drago leading the 1976 Angels in saves with six? Or Lloyd Allen leading the 1972 Angels with five? Or Orlando Pena leading the 1974 Angels with three?

Remember the entire 1974 Angel bullpen producing in one season what Dan Quisenberry does in a good month--12 saves?

Individually, they were known by such names as Dave Sells, Chuck Hockenberry, Skip Lockwood, Don Kirkwood, Aurelio Monteagudo, John Montague, Mike Barlow, John Verhoeven and Luis Quintana.

Collectively, they were the relief corps that couldn’t close anything except the bullpen gate. Pitchers for pyromania.

If you needed a fire extinguished, you didn’t call on these guys. They leaked gasoline. They could fan a spark into flames, turn flames into a conflagration.

Mike Port, the second-year general manager of the Angels, remembers the arson squad. He often read about the members’ exploits while serving his front-office apprenticeship with the San Diego Padres in the mid-1970s.

“It was an interesting contrast,” Port said. “In San Diego, we had Rollie Fingers, but nobody except Randy Jones could keep a game close enough for us to use him. The Angels had Nolan Ryan and good starting pitching . . . and nobody to close it up.”

Port got a chance to observe the arson squad up close when he left the Padres to become the Angels’ director of player personnel in December 1977. “I arrived just after the fire was extinguished,” Port jokes.

Well, not quite.

The legend continued to live on for more than a decade, through the middle of the 1980s, perpetuated by a front office that, at times, seemed driven by masochism.

Before 1985, the Angels had experienced four pitchers who saved as many as 20 games in one season.

Three of them--Bob Lee, Ken Tatum and Dave LaRoche--wound up being traded.

The Angels also dealt away Mark Clear and Sid Monge, who went on to play in the All-Star game, and lost Don Aase to free agency.

Attempts to bolster the bullpen from the outside, too, went up in flames--resulting in either damaged goods, as with John D’Acquisto and Frank LaCorte, or in disappointment, as with Doug Corbett.

But in 1985, the arson squad breathed its last. The combination of a new general manager, a recycled manager and a new philosophy forged a remarkable transformation.

For once, outside help actually helped. Donnie Moore, selected from Atlanta in the free-agent compensation pool, saved 31 games--more than the bullpens of 16 Angel teams before him.

For once, the farm system produced. Rookie Stewart Cliburn, recalled from Edmonton in April, won nine games, saved six and fashioned a 2.09 earned-run average in support of Moore.

And now, after an off-season trade that brought veteran left-handed reliever Gary Lucas in from Montreal, the Angels’ 1986 bullpen is being described in strange and uncommon terms.

Outstanding, instead of outrageous. A cornerstone, not a millstone.

“Right now, our bullpen stacks up as the best the Angels have had,” Port said. “When you consider the seasons Donnie Moore and Stew Cliburn had last year, plus the help we acquired from the left side, overall, we’ve never gone into a season with a bullpen in better shape.”

Said Manager Gene Mauch: “I’ve always had pretty good bullpens--Mike Marshall in Montreal and Minnesota, Ed Roebuck and Dick Farrell in Philadelphia, Bill Campbell in Minnesota in ‘76--but I never had a better one than last year’s.

“And this year’s could very well be better than that.”

Port and Mauch were instrumental in bringing relief to the Angel relief corps. Returning for his second stint as manager of the Angels in 1985, Mauch told Port he couldn’t live without a better bullpen. Port, beginning his first year as Angel general manager, was eager to oblige.

“When I took over, my first priority was the bullpen,” Port said.

That was smart, considering that the Angels reside in the same division as Quisenberry and the Kansas City Royals. Port noticed that the Royals won many division titles.

He wasn’t much on the Angels’ old strategy on how to combat the Royals. “There’s a way to beat a good bullpen,” Port said, reciting the verse. “That’s to score 10 runs in the first inning.”

Easier, and more realistic, was to close the bullpen gap. “We had to refine our relief pitching,” is how Port gently put it.

Mauch was adamant about it. Whereas Whitey Herzog is a proponent of speed on the basepaths and Earl Weaver lives the three-run homer, Mauch thrives when his bullpen runs deep and strong.

“You can’t survive without one,” said Mauch, who has been accused of wearing out relievers, a charge he doesn’t refute.

“I’ve had a lot of bullpens I considered successful if they could withstand the rigors of me having them pitch on the sidelines.”

With the Angels in 1985, Mauch was surprised to have something to work with, particularly a workhorse named Donnie Moore.

“That’s one of the nicer things to happen to me,” Mauch said. “Donnie was my man, my stopper.”

Mauch used Moore in 65 games. Cliburn made 44 appearances.

And now, with a left-handed reliever, the possibilities for Mauch in 1986 are endless.

A look at the men in Mauch’s bullpen:

THE STOPPER Addition by subtraction is how the Angels landed Moore, who became the first relief pitcher to be named the team’s Most Valuable Player.

The winter of 1984 was a harsh one for Port. He had barely moved into his general manager’s office when bullpen ace Don Aase and center fielder Fred Lynn chose free agency.

But when Lynn and Aase left for Baltimore, the groundwork for bringing Moore to Anaheim was laid. With Aase gone, the Angel needs for 1985 became clearly defined. And with Lynn gone, the Angels were able to dip into the compensation pool, the payoff for teams losing Type A free agents.

Moore saved 16 games in 1984 for the Atlanta Braves, but was coming off minor knee surgery. The Braves gambled and threw his name out there on the unprotected list, hoping the surgery would scare off shoppers.

The thought barely crossed the Angels’ minds.

“It took us all of a minute and a half to select him,” Mauch said.

Port admitted that it was a risk, but he had a position to fill and he liked Moore’s numbers.

“He saved 16 games in a tough ballpark,” Port said. “We thought, ‘Gee, we have a chance to pick up 16 saves, maybe 20 if he has a good year.’ ”

Instead, the Angels wound up with 31, a club record.

Moore also won 8 games, fashioned a 1.92 ERA and struck out 72 hitters in 103 innings. “A phenomenal job,” Port said.

Moore did it with a trick pitch--the split-fingered fastball--and an attitude that bordered on arrogance. On the mound, he swaggered as no Angel reliever before him had done.

“Not everybody can be a short reliever,” Moore says. “Most don’t like all that pressure.

“The last few outs are the toughest in the whole game. A lot of guys don’t want to face the big-game hitters with the game on the line.

“I thrive on it. You need a certain coolness out there--you can’t be nervy. Most of the time, it’s do or die. It’s a challenging role, and I like it.”

Said Port:

“With a stopper, there’s a certain amount of ego involved, a king-of-the-hill syndrome. The guy has to be aggressive, he has to think ‘I’m the man and nobody can touch me.’

“All the great relievers in the game--Sutter, Fingers, Gossage--thought that way.”

And now, Moore is getting paid commensurate with the great relievers in the game. After a long and laborious winter negotiation, Moore and Port agreed to a new three-year contract in January worth $1 million a year.

“His signing was our key move of the winter,” Port said. “It was a signal, a sign, a message to our fans that we wanted to keep together what we started last year.”

THE SET-UP MAN Stewart Walker Cliburn grew up in Jackson, Miss., but followed the Angels from afar when his brother, Stan, was a catcher in the California organization from 1974 through 1980.

He hadn’t heard of the arson squad by name, but he was aware of its reputation.

“I knew they had bullpen problems,” Cliburn said. “I knew this was a good organization for me when I signed in ‘82, because they needed relief pitching.”

Cliburn figured his rise to the major leagues would be swift. He hadn’t, however, expected the breakthrough to be so gaudy.

In serving as Moore’s set-up man--pitching the seventh and eighth innings before Moore came in and wrapped up the ninth--Cliburn worked nearly 100 innings in 1985. He also worked extra innings, notching four of his nine victories in the 10th inning or later.

And when the Angels dealt Pat Clements to Pittsburgh in the trade for John Candelaria, leaving the team without a reliable left-handed reliever, Cliburn became the man Mauch called upon when he needed to get a left-handed hitter out.

“I was flattered and honored when he gave me the ball in those situations,” Cliburn said.

“Stew did a hell of a job, doing what you’d ask a top-quality left-handed pitcher to do,” Moore said.

Cliburn complements Moore in role as well as style. Moore is a hard thrower who tries to intimidate hitters with glower and heat. Cliburn tries to get by with trickery.

“I’m not a strikeout pitcher,” Cliburn said. “I have to keep the ball low, come in with a slider, a sinker and a changeup. I let the ball do the work.”

Finesse pitchers, Cliburn says, are most effective as members of the supporting cast.

“I knew my ticket to the majors was as a set-up man,” he said. “I like that role. It suits my style.

“I’m not saying I couldn’t be a stopper. But I don’t know a trick pitch, like Sutter or Donnie, and I’m not overpowering, like Gossage.”

Cliburn knows his place. It’s on the mound, in the eighth inning, with Moore warming up in the bullpen behind him.

THE MISSING LINK At last, relief for the relief.

When the Angels announced in late December that they had acquired Lucas, the move was greeted with a chorus of hallelujahs by Moore and Cliburn.

“It means a lot to us,” Moore said. “There are a lot of tough left-handed hitters in this league. You need that left-hander who can come in and get one left-handed batter out.

“Early last year, when we had Clements, it was a luxury for us. After he was traded, it put some strain on Stew and me. There were a few games down the stretch where we could’ve used a left-hander.”

It should be noted that the Angels finished last season with one lefty, Al Holland, in their bullpen. But when Holland yielded a three-run home run to Oakland’s Bruce Bochte in late August, Mauch lost confidence in him.

Holland is now with the New York Yankees.

Lucas, 31, brings these credentials to the Angels:

--Experience as a short reliever. With San Diego in 1983, Lucas saved a career-high 17 games.

--Experience as a middle reliever. Last year, serving as the set-up man for Jeff Reardon, National League Fireman of the Year, Lucas went 6-2 with a 3.19 ERA.

--A reputation as a bullpen bull. “The main thing I can bring this team is flexibility,” Lucas said. “I can come in and face one left-handed hitter, I can come in in the third and fourth innings, I can close out a game. And I bounce back fast. I can pitch four or five days in a row.”

That, according to Mauch, is the best of possible news.

“I always have to fight the tendency to abuse a left-handed reliever,” Mauch said. “When I’ve only had one, I’d be getting him up (and having him throw) in the bullpen all the time. I wanted him ready. Whether I used him or not, it was still taxing.”

The Angel bullpen still is not quite completely set. Still competing for supplementary roles are Ken Forsch, the former ace of the starting staff who is attempting to return after two years of inactivity; Carl Willis, a minor leaguer drafted out of the Cincinnati organization this winter; Urbano Lugo, currently recovering from off-season elbow surgery; Jim Slaton, Corbett and LaCorte.

But the first line of relief has been established. And for the first time in many springs, the first line is worthy of the description.