Sutton Cools Off as Toronto Defeats Angels

It’s not likely, but even Don Sutton--a guy who makes Mr. Rogers look like a pessimist--might have had doubts about the state of his career after his first two starts this season.

He had just turned 41, was 0-2 and had an earned-run average of 23.14. He didn’t gain his first victory until start No. 6, then began winning at a pace to rival his glory days with the Dodgers. He won six in a row and even had a pair of complete games during the streak.

But suddenly, Sutton is mortal again, as the Toronto Blue Jays discovered while beating the Angels, 8-5, Thursday night at Anaheim Stadium.

As 31,585 looked on, the Blue Jays pushed Sutton all over the park in the fifth inning. Before he could get an out, they had scored five runs on four hits, including a two-run double by No. 9-hitter Damaso Garcia and a three-run homer by former Angel Rance Mulliniks.

“I committed three sins and two of them were unpardonable,” Sutton said. “I walked Mulliniks in the first, but the most ridiculous things were walking (Cliff) Johnson to lead off the fifth and then giving up the 0-2 hit to Garcia.

“Those are two things you absolutely cannot do, and it put us five runs down.”

The Angels got behind in a hurry, but it wasn’t because Sutton (8-6) was particularly ineffective. That came later.

The Blue Jays took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on a walk, a single and some ineffective defense on the part of Gary Pettis, Bob Boone and Sutton.

Mulliniks drew a one-out walk, and Lloyd Moseby singled him to third. Then Sutton got George Bell to hit a shallow fly to center field, but Pettis overthrew cutoff man Wally Joyner, and Boone was unable to short-hop the ball.

Sutton, who was backing up the play, had trouble getting off a throw to Boone as Bell raced home ahead of the tag. Boone got the error.

In the bottom of the first, leadoff batter Rick Burleson evened things up in a much simpler--and quicker--fashion, hitting Jimmy Key’s second delivery into the seats down the left-field line. It was Burleson’s fourth homer of the year and his second leading off in the first.

The Angels had a chance to get to Key, who has also rebounded from a slow start and is now 9-6, in the second when the left-hander walked both George Hendrick and Bobby Grich to lead off the inning. But Dick Schofield was unable to get down a bunt and eventually popped up before Boone grounded into a double play.

Boone, who also had a throwing error on Jesse Barfield’s swinging bunt in the fourth, was having a night to forget. The Angels loaded the bases in the fourth on two walks sandwiched around a Grich single. But Boone rolled into another double play to end the inning.

In the fifth, the walk to Johnson, Ernie Whitt’s single, Garcia’s two-run double, a single by Tony Fernandez and Mulliniks’ homer to right sent Sutton to the clubhouse and put the Angels in a five-run-deep hole.

They tried to climb out in the bottom of the fifth when Burleson and Joyner got consecutive singles. Doug DeCinces looped a run-scoring single to center to cut Toronto’s lead to 6-2.

Rookie reliever Chuck Finley, who replaced Sutton in the fifth, retired eight of the first nine Blue Jays he faced, four on strikeouts. But the one hit, a high chopper to third by Garcia, cost him a run when he yielded an RBI single to Moseby.

The Angel defense continued to be less than awe-inspiring. Downing bobbled Moseby’s hit, and the Toronto center fielder took second easily.

Another Angel rookie, Mike Cook, took the mound and couldn’t find the plate. He walked both Bell and Barfield to load the bases.

Then Boone finally did something right, but not exactly the way he planned it. He tried to pick Bell off second, and his throw in the dirt got away from Schofield. It bounded to Grich, though, who threw back to Boone just in time to get Moseby at the plate.

Joyner started off the seventh by beating out a grounder to the hole at short, giving him his 13th three-hit game of the season. That brought out Toronto Manager Jimy Williams, who brought in Mike Eichhorn.

Eichhorn struck out Downing and DeCinces, but pinch-hitter Rupert Jones crushed a line-drive homer to left, cutting the Blue Jay advantage to 7-4.

Toronto got a run on two hits in the eighth, and the Angels kept up the suspense when Downing singled and Jones doubled in the ninth.

But John Cerutti came on to get the last two outs--and his first major league save in the process--as the Angels scored just once.

Angel Notes The Angels activated left-handed reliever Gary Lucas and sent right-hander Todd Fischer to Edmonton Thursday. Lucas, who came to the Angels in a 1985 trade with Montreal, has been on the disabled list since the season began because of a back injury. He has spent the last three weeks on rehabilitation assignment with the club’s Class A affiliate in Palm Springs, where he was 0-2 with a 5.11 earned-run average in seven appearances. Fischer, who was called up May 28, had no record and a 3.76 ERA in nine relief appearances. . . . Angel Manager Gene Mauch juggled his starting rotation after the All-Star break, but he said the shuffle wasn’t made to skip struggling Ron Romanick’s turn. “I was just lining ‘em up the way we think looks best,” he said. It’s probably more than a coincidence, however, that Romanick will go 10 days between starts and won’t pitch until Monday against the Milwaukee Brewers. Romanick has a 6-1 career record against Milwaukee. . . .Don Sutton made his 690th career start Thursday night, tying him with Gaylord Perry for second on the all-time list.