Mike Witt Still Learning as He Counts the Years, Wins

You know Mike Witt. Tall, skinny kid, pitches for the Angels. He’s young, he’s full of potential, he’s . . . 26?

Witt first took the mound for the Angels as a bushy-haired basketball player whose delivery--arms and legs flailing this way and that in a desperate struggle for self-expression--reminded some of a bad kung fu movie.

That was six years ago. It seems like just yesterday he was touted as the Angels’ young pitching prince of tomorrow. It seems like just yesterday he threw his perfect game against Texas.

And it seems like just yesterday he helped the Angels to a 4-1 win at Anaheim Stadium by holding the Boston Red Sox to one run on five hits in eight innings.

Oh yeah, that was yesterday.

Saturday, Witt gave up a third-inning home run to catcher Rich Gedman and then limited the Red Sox to two hits until he left the game with no one out in the ninth inning.

It was not his best performance--how do you top a perfect game?--but it did illustrate that as the seemingly ever-youthful Witt grows older, he may be becoming a bit wiser.

“It used to be that something like Gedman’s home run would really get me on a downer,” Witt said. “But I’ve learned you can give up home runs, one-run homers, and still win. You have to recover from it and get the next guy.”

Witt (10-7) threw 119 pitches Saturday, struck out four, walked one and didn’t allow a Boston hit after the fifth. He was denied his third complete game of the season when Angel second baseman Bobby Grich made an error on a ground ball hit by Wade Boggs. Pitching coach Rene Lachmann removed Witt for Donnie Moore, who got Bill Buckner to hit into a double play and Jim Rice on a game-ending pop fly to Grich.

Boggs, the major league’s leading hitter, went hitless in four trips against Witt.

It was strange that after such a strong performance, the subject matter Saturday in the Angel locker room dealt with the lost youth of Mike Witt.

“He’s no longer the young Mike Witt,” Gene Mauch, Angel manager, said. “His story is the same for every pitcher. You get yourself under control. And when you get under control, you’ve got the ball under control. And if the ball is under control, you’ve got a good chance to keep the hitters under control.

“He got a little tired toward the end, but he probably could have gone a little more, but with someone like Donnie Moore around . . .”

Does all this mean that Witt is ready to fulfill his promise and become the Angel stopper?

“I want my teammates and my coaches to have confidence that I can get the job done,” he said. “But I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on myself.”

It seems that with wisdom has come a steel-trap memory. He may be sixth on the Angels’ all-time win list with 63, but Witt remembers the bad as well as the good. When a reporter stated he didn’t think Witt had a really bad performance this season, Witt reeled off: “Oakland, Kansas City, New York.”

“If I haven’t learned anything by this point, then I don’t deserve to be here,” he said. “I’m not 20 years old anymore. I find the older I get, the easier it is to recover from things. I can’t be concerned with worrying about a guy scoring or a guy that did score. I’ve got to get the guy at the plate. That’s my responsibility.”

‘It used to be that something like Gedman’s home run would really get me on a downer. But I’ve learned you can give up home runs, one-run homers, and still win.’

--Mike Witt