Witt Pays for Mistake, and Orioles Win, 2-1, on a Homer by Ripken

Mike Witt had just thrown a four-hitter Wednesday night, and it was time to meet the press. He avoided it for as long as he could, scrubbing and re-scrubbing in the shower while the Memorial Stadium water bill soared.

Finally, it was time to dress. Witt walked to his locker and slowly began to pull on his street clothes. Reporters carefully followed. Huddled around Witt, they delivered their questions in solemn, quiet tones. Witt hung his head as he answered them.

There was talk of frustration, and there was talk of the one mistake Witt made out of the 101 pitches he threw--the one mistake Cal Ripken turned into a two-run seventh-inning home run and a 2-1 victory by the Baltimore Orioles over the Angels.

From across the clubhouse, Don Sutton studied the scene. He shook his head.

“It goes to show you how relative this game is,” Sutton said. “Last night, Mike Boddicker and Kirk McCaskill give up 10 runs between them, and they’re congratulating McCaskill for a winning pitching performance. Tonight, Mike Witt gives up one home run, and they’re consoling him.

“It’s not fair. It doesn’t make any sense.”

The game of baseball stopped making sense to Witt a long time ago. The worst thing about the somber scene surrounding him was that it wasn’t unusual. Not by a long shot.

Witt is 3-4 despite a 2.66 earned-run average, third best in the American League. In his last three losses, the Angels scored a total of three runs.

And this is merely the continuation of a trend from last season. In 1985, Witt went 15-9. In eight of his losses, the Angels scored two runs or fewer. They were shut out three times.

“Does Mike Witt have horsebleep luck or what?” Reggie Jackson said. “How often has he gotten us into the seventh inning? He gets us to the seventh all the time, and we don’t score nothin’ for him. It’s weird.”

Angel Manager Gene Mauch called it, “A shame.”

“I don’t remember ever being more impressed with Mike Witt than tonight,” Mauch said. “That is not a club that can be dominated . . . and he was in command. It’s a shame to waste that.”

A crowd of 16,651 watched Witt fashion a one-hitter through six innings, the lone Baltimore hit being a ground-ball single through the right side of the infield by Fred Lynn. With one out in the seventh, Lynn collected hit No. 2--another single to right.

Trying to protect a 1-0 lead, Witt bore down and struck out Eddie Murray. That brought up Ripken with two outs.

Witt got ahead of the count, 1 and 2. He was one pitch away from the eighth inning.

“He had Ripken,” catcher Bob Boone later lamented. “One and two. There were a lot of ways he could’ve gone.”

Witt went with a slow curveball. It picked up speed considerably once Ripken got through with it.

Ripken lined the ball into the left-field seats for his fifth home run of the season and his second in as many days. Baltimore has scored six runs in two games against the Angels, and five have come on home runs by Ripken.

“It was a sidearm hook that stayed over the plate a little longer than he wanted it to,” Mauch said. “Their shortstop (Ripken) is a quality player. Give him something to hit and he’s gonna hit it.

“That was the same pitch he’d been swinging at and missing a lot. I can’t criticize the pitch selection. When you throw as many hooks as Mike did tonight, they’re gonna hit some.”

Boone didn’t like the pitch. “He got it up,” Boone said.

How far up?

“About 395 feet,” Boone said.

It was one mistake, but Baltimore pitchers Storm Davis (4-2) and Don Aase permitted little margin for error. Davis allowed eight singles and struck out six in 8 innings. Aase retired the final two Angels, pinch-hitter Ruppert Jones and Boone, on infield flies for his 10th save.

The only Angel run came in the sixth inning when Wally Joyner singled, took second on a wild pitch and came home on a bloop single to right by Brian Downing.

They had chances to tie in the eighth and ninth innings. But Aase left two runners stranded in the ninth after Davis got out of trouble in the eighth by starting a double play on Jackson’s sharp grounder.

“Davis saved his own ballgame,” Mauch said. “He made the best play of the night.”

And that left Witt to puzzle over another strong effort that trickled down the drain.

“All I can do is go out with the best stuff I can,” Witt said. “If I get in a game I think I can win and I don’t, yeah, I get ticked off. Everybody looks at the won-lost record. If that’s what’s important, it is frustrating.

“I can’t think about who I’m pitching against or how many runs we score,” he said. “I just do my job. If I think of anything else, I’m not doing my job.”

Angel Notes The Orioles were impressed with what they saw from Mike Witt. “The way he was throwing the ball, you knew it was going to be a low-scoring game,” Storm Davis said. “I know he had a lot of our guys shaking their heads when they came back to our dugout.” Said Cal Ripken: “He always has nasty stuff. It’s not a happy day when you have to face him four times in a game.” . . . The Angels left runners on first and second in the ninth inning when Ruppert Jones and Bob Boone both popped to second. Gene Mauch sent Jones to pinch-hit for Gary Pettis but let Boone (.232) bat for himself with Jerry Narron, a left-handed hitter, on the bench and Don Aase, a right-handed pitcher, on the mound. “If a (sacrifice) fly ball got the job done, if he walks Jones, then I would’ve used Narron,” Mauch said. “But when he got Jones, it was down to a basehit. If memory serves me right, Boonie hits Aase about as well as anybody.” Aase, a former Angel, had previously faced Boone twice. Boone had one hit. Narron is 1 for 4 against Aase.

Wally Joyner figured out Davis all right. Joyner had three singles in four at-bats, raising his batting average to .321 . . . George Hendrick’s slump continues. Hendrick went 0 for 4 and is hitless in his last 17 at-bats. His average has slipped from .423 on April 30 to .239 . . . Rick Burleson made his first start of the month at shortstop.