Witt Takes a Cue from Candelaria : With Help From Moore, He Records Shutout of Own, 4-0

One day after John Candelaria labored through nine innings with leg cramps, Mike Witt struggled through eight innings with a stiff right arm that got worse as the game went along.

The Angel pitching staff has never looked better.

Although he needed one inning of help from Donnie Moore to do it, Witt matched Candelaria shutout for shutout and three-hitter for three-hitter Sunday, blanking the Seattle Mariners, 4-0. The win, in front of an Anaheim Stadium crowd of 28,939, completed a four-game sweep of the Mariners.

The back-to-back shutouts were the Angels’ first since Sept. 29-30, 1984. Witt also had a role that time. One day after Geoff Zahn held the Texas Rangers without a run, Witt pitched a perfect game.

Whatever mental games Witt plays while out on the mound remain a mystery--he reveals an emotion about as often as he reveals a home run pitch--but apparently one-upmanship is one of them.

“I wouldn’t call it competition,” Witt said, “but I like to compare myself with other guys on our staff. If someone does well, and I get to face the same team, it motivates me to do as well as him . . . if not better.”

So the blueprint Witt followed Sunday was the one provided by Candelaria’s 5-0 complete-game win Saturday night. Candelaria put together a three-hitter while fighting off cramps in both legs and soreness in the groin area.

The object of the day was to duplicate it. And Witt virtually did--right down to the part about pitching in pain.

Witt was unable to loosen up his right arm during warmups and game action didn’t much help the cause. But through seven innings, he stiff-armed the Mariners, holding them to three doubles.

Then the Angels broke a 1-0 game open by scoring three times in the seventh. Eight Angels went to the plate while Witt sat and waited.

It didn’t do wonders for his arm.

“We’d been having a lot of 1-2-3 innings, and then in the seventh, I had to sit an extra 10-15 minutes,” Witt said. “The arm got tight on me again.”

Witt tried to pitch through it again. He walked two batters in the eighth, but a double play to got him out of the inning.

At that point, by agreement with Manager Gene Mauch, Witt took his leave. Despite some personal numbers at stake--Witt was bidding for the American League leadership in shutouts (3) and complete games (11)--the pitcher said it wasn’t hard to say goodby.

“It’s not tough for me,” Witt said. “You can only do what you can do. And I’d had enough.”

Witt did, however, pick up his team-leading 13th victory against seven defeats.

Moore came on to work the ninth inning, his first appearance in a week. He retired Seattle in order, and the Angels hit their high-water mark of the season, 11 games above .500.

The Angels needed only their first-inning output--Bobby Grich’s ground-rule double and George Hendrick’s RBI single--for the victory. But they made the final leg of the sweep look a little easier when Brian Downing doubled in two runs and Doug DeCinces doubled in one during the seventh inning.

Now, a sweep of the last-place Mariners may not seem like much, but according to Grich, that’s precisely the point. Grich, in his 10th season as an Angel, has seen more than one drive to the divisional title undermined by the second division.

Now is the time, Grich says, to beat up on the downtrodden.

“These are the games we have to win,” Grich said. “In the past, we’ve had teams come up a little short when we didn’t do the job against the lower teams in our division. We’d get a two- or three-game lead over Kansas City, but we’d be having trouble with Seattle and Minnesota while they were playing New York and Baltimore. And that would come back and haunt us in September.”

This year, the Angels’ competition in the West has been provided by Texas, now 2 1/2 games back. “I’m sure they’re watching us as hard as we’re watching them,” Grich said. “We’re both holding tight right now.

“But they’re doing it against Baltimore and Toronto. We still have to play Detroit, Baltimore and New York.”

Thus, the message to the Angels is this: “Win now . . . pay later.”

Next up for the Angels are three games against Minnesota and three against Oakland. The Twins and the A’s are battling Seattle for last place in the West.

So, more opportunity knocks for the Angels. Maybe their pitching staff can come up with another injury or two.

Angel Notes

The hit of the day was the ground rule double. The Angels and Mariners combined for five of them, including a disputed one by Doug DeCinces in the seventh inning that momentarily cost the Angels a run. With Gary Pettis on second and Wally Joyner on first, DeCinces drove a Mark Langston pitch into the left-field corner. The ball bounced past Seattle left fielder Phil Bradley and rolled to a stop under the padding outside the gate of the visitors’ bullpen. Pettis and Joyner had both scored, and DeCinces was running into third, when Bradley held his arms up, signaling that the ball was out of play. Third base umpire Ted Hendry ran out to take a look and ruled that the ball was lodged under the padding. He called it a ground rule double, sending Joyner going back to third. Angel Manager Gene Mauch argued over the call. “The ball was lying just behind the padding. It was clearly visible,” Mauch said. “The umpire said it was stuck. I said, ‘He didn’t look for it.’ It certainly was stuck under the tarp.” The point became moot when the next batter, Brian Downing, hit another ground rule double--this one hitting the right-field line and skipping into the adjacent seats. Both Joyner and DeCinces scored on the hit.

Other ground rule doubles were delivered by Bobby Grich, who had two, and Seattle’s Danny Tartabull . . . Joyner was victimized by another controversial call in the first inning. After Grich’s leadoff double, Joyner swung and dumped a dribbler in front of home plate--basically, a swinging bunt. Joyner started to first and catcher Scott Bradley started for the ball. But the action was abruptly halted by home plate umpire Derryl Cousins, who said Joyner had blocked Bradley’s path to the ball and called Joyner out on interference with the catcher. Grich later scored, however, on a single by George Hendrick.

Seattle’s Jim Presley, who leads the Mariners with 20 home runs, left the game in the middle of the fifth inning with a sore right shoulder. He was replaced by Domingo Ramos, who has no home runs. In the top of the seventh inning, with runners on first and third with two out, Ramos struck out to end the Mariners’ best scoring opportunity . . . With the eight scoreless innings, Mike Witt lowered his earned-run average to 2.82. He leads the American League in innings pitched with 191.