Boone’s Homer Beats Yankees : Three-Run Shot Helps Sutton Win 298th Game

For the first two months of the 1986 baseball season, Bob Boone had been a rather silent partner in the firm of Jackson, Joyner and Co. He had appeared in the starting lineup in 45 of the Angels’ first 50 games, only to usually disappear shortly thereafter.

It isn’t difficult to overlook a guy whose two-month work sheet showed a .206 batting average with 2 home runs and 12 RBIs. Boone wears the tools of ignorance behind the plate for the Angels, but, through May, his bat had been a tool of insignificance. It was hardly an eventful start to his 14th season in the major leagues.

But during the Angels’ 4-2 victory over the New York Yankees Tuesday night, Boone packed all those missing highlights into nine short innings.

The Angels catcher began the evening by clasping another rung in his bid to surpass Al Lopez’s record for most major league games caught. Tuesday was Boone’s 1,712th game as a catcher--tying him for seventh place on the all-time list with Bill Dickey.

Six innings into Game No. 1,712, Boone threw out Rickey Henderson on a stolen-base attempt. This, on its own merit, is major news, but, for Boone, it was the continuation of an intriguing trend. At 38, Boone is 2 for 2 in showdowns at second base with Henderson this season. He has also won 5 of his last 8 confrontations with the American League’s top base stealer--and 15 of 29 since 1982.

But the clincher came in the seventh inning.

With the score tied at 1-1 with two out and two runners on base, Boone did something he hadn’t accomplished since July 14, 1984.

He hit a home run at Anaheim Stadium.

The three-run shot off Dennis Rasmussen (5-2) down the left-field line was historic in a number of ways. It provided Don Sutton (3-5) with the runs he needed for the 298th victory of his career. It also provided the Angels with their fourth straight triumph, their longest winning streak of the season, and moved them above .500 (26-25) for the first time since May 23.

All in all, a rather interesting evening for Boone.

“I’m not sure who needed it most, Bob or me,” Sutton said. “He’s been struggling. We both needed something special.”

Boone was sure.

“It’s obvious who needed it,” Boone said. “Me.”

Boone had waited a long, long time for a night like this. He hadn’t hit a home run since April 27. He hadn’t produced a game-winning hit since 1985.

He hadn’t produced many hits, period. Boone entered Tuesday’s game confounded by a 1-for-22 slump, watching his average drop nearly 60 points in less than a month.

The slide drove him to abandon his trademark s-t-r-e-t-c-h stance, a batting style in which Boone planted his left foot just inside the top of the batter’s box and his right foot just inside the back line. Anyone who has ever attempted to do the splits recognized it. It almost hurt to watch.

But Boone was more pained by the lack of hits the stance yielded. So this home stand, he worked overtime in the batting cage, tinkering here and there, finally developing a new stance which moved his feet closer together.

The slight adjustment, at least for one night, was enough. He first tried it out Monday and went 0 for 4, but his first hit with it cleared the outfield fences.

“I knew I hit it as hard as I could,” Boone said. “The point where I am now, I just close my eyes and swing hard. I’ve been so brutal, I just go out there hacking.”

The home run was Boone’s third of the year. He hit five homers in 1985, but all of them were delivered away from home. His first two of 1986 came at Oakland and Minnesota.

Tuesday’s Anaheim Stadium crowd of 33,309 obviously got to witness something truly rare.

Boone broke a 1-1 deadlock created by a pair of solo home runs. Bobby Grich’s third homer of the year gave the Angels a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning. Mike Pagliarulo, continuing his one-man purge of the Angel pitching staff, erased the deficit with his 12th homer in the fifth inning. Nearly half of Pagliarulo’s team-leading home run total--five--have come against the Angels.

But that one hit, along with pinch-hitter Ken Griffey’s RBI force play in the eighth inning, proved to be all the offense New York could muster against Sutton. After failing for victory No. 298 twice--allowing 10 runs in his last 7 innings--Sutton settled down to limit the Yankees to six hits through eight innings.

“I was lucky,” Sutton said, “which hasn’t happened much lately. I got (Don) Mattingly out four times without hitting a spot all night. You have to be lucky to win.”

It also helps to have a healthy bullpen. The Angels’ isn’t yet back to full strength, but for the first time in a week, Terry Forster was able to test his left shoulder under fire. Forster came in to pitch the ninth inning and faced four Yankees.

He got Mike Easler to ground out, Dave Winfield to line to left and--after a walk to pinch-hitter Gary Roenicke--struck out Pagliarulo.

Boone sprang out of his crouch and pumped his fist in the air. Forster quickly shuffled off the mound to accept congratulations for his second save in an Angel uniform.

And the Angels remained undefeated in June--thanks largely to catcher making up time lost in the forgotten months of April and May.

Angel Notes

The target date for John Candelaria’s return to the starting rotation has been pushed back from earlier optimistic predictions that had him due back by next home stand. “It won’t be mid-June,” team therapist Roger Williams said. “Before July? That’d be nice, but I don’t know. I’d say the chances are excellent that he’ll be back before the All-Star break.” Williams said Candelaria’s recovery has hit a few minor snags. “We’ve had to nurse it a little bit slower than we initially expected,” he said, referring to Candelaria’s left elbow. “He had a couple of outings where he had minor discomfort, so we backed him off a little. But the past three times he’s thrown have been virtually pain free.” That included Tuesday, when Candelaria threw in the bullpen for 17 minutes. His next workout is scheduled for Friday in Cleveland, when Candelaria will throw breaking pitches for the first time. “We have to see how his arm responds to throwing breaking balls,” Williams said. . . . Donnie Moore is also scheduled to resume pitching off the mound in Cleveland. Thus far during his stint on the disabled list, Moore has been limited to weightlifting, designed to strengthen his shoulder after last week’s arthrogram.

Gene Mauch said he expected Doug DeCinces to return to the lineup by Friday. He has already appeared as a pinch-runner in Monday’s victory over the Yankees--an appearance that surprised no one more than DeCinces. Figuring he had the evening off, DeCinces was clad in a warm-up jacket and spikeless AstroTurf shoes--and was without his contact lens--when Mauch called for him in the ninth inning. DeCinces had to scramble to pull on his game jersey and ran out to second base while wearing glasses. DeCinces eventually scored the winning run on Brian Downing’s RBI single. . . . The changes Yankee Manager Lou Piniella promised in the wake of Monday’s loss came to pass. Tuesday, Piniella benched shortstop Bobby Meacham, who committed a costly error, in favor of Mike Fischlin and replaced .175-hitting catcher Butch Wynegar with Ron Hassey.