Sutton Makes Those Pitches Count--All 92 : He Goes 7, and Angels Beat Tigers to Lead by 4 1/2

Here it was, the eighth inning, and there he was, 41-year-old Don Sutton, going into the textbook windup that has carried him to more than 300 wins in 21 major league seasons.

It’s no surprise when Sutton wins a game, of course, but by the time the eighth inning rolls around, he’s supposed to be on ice . . . literally.

Sutton has been taking ice baths after his outings the last two seasons. And after means by the seventh inning most of the time. In his last five starts before Thursday night, Sutton averaged just six innings.

But the veteran righthander was making the most of his pitches Thursday night, and the result was a 4-2 win over Detroit that increased the Angels’ lead to 4 1/2 games over Texas in the American League West.

Sutton left with one out in the eighth, after making his 92nd pitch (a fourth ball to Dwight Lowry), and reliever Donnie Moore brought his sore right shoulder to the mound to earn his 18th save. But not without providing a scare for the 33,762 in attendance at Anaheim Stadium when he gave up a leadoff homer to Alan Trammell in the ninth.

Sutton allowed just four hits and one run to improve his record to 12-9 and make his cold dip a bit more comfortable.

“At this stage, anything I can do to recover quicker will help,” Sutton said. “I used to pitch, play golf and have fun the next day, then start recovering on the third or fourth day.

“Now, I pitch and recover in 24 hours.”

That’s not to say he’ll be ready to go again on Saturday, which is just as well as far as the Tigers are concerned.

They put together three singles for the first run of the game in the third inning, but Sutton had his way the rest of the time.

The Angels got single runs in the fifth and sixth innings and then scored a pair in the seventh on a leadoff homer by Ruppert Jones and an RBI single by Doug DeCinces, who went 3 for 4. DeCinces is hitting .345 in August.

The first ten batters of the game went down without incident, but the bottom of the second was the inning of near misses.

With one out, DeCinces ripped a one-hopper back over the mound, and Detroit starter Eric King, 22, from Simi Valley, just got his glove in front of his face in time. He deflected the ball to shortstop Trammell, whose throw to first base was late.

King is the hottest Tiger rookie since Mark Fidrych talked baseballs into helping him win 19 games in 1976, but King is 5-0 at Tiger Stadium (and 9-4 overall) because he’d rather throw the ball than converse with it.

And he throws hard. Just ask Dick Schofield.

With two out in the second, Schofield took a King fastball on the side of the face. After a few tense moments, he managed to shake off the pain and jog to first.

“Anytime you get hit in the head or face and nothing happens, you’re pretty lucky,” Schofield said. “I was shocked more than anything, just a little stunned.”

So was King, who appeared more unnerved by that pitch than by the DeCinces comebacker. He walked Bob Boone on four pitches to load the bases. Gary Pettis had the final near-miss of the inning, though, lining to left field to end the threat.

Singles by Darnell Coles, Lou Whitaker and Trammell gave Detroit the 1-0 advantage. Trammell’s run-scoring line drive seemed to fool leftfielder Brian Downing, who stopped and short-hopped the ball after it bounced just a couple of feet in front of him.

But the Angels tied the game in the fifth with some help from King . . . and the turf.

After dodging a couple of bad-hop grounders earlier during batting practice, DeCinces had flung his glove against the dugout wall and asked, “How many football games did they have here while we were gone . . . two or three?”

The Angels weren’t complaining about football-cleat divots after the fifth, however.

King again walked Boone, and Pettis hit a ground ball to Trammell that looked like an infield-practice double play until it took a bad hop and bounced off the shortstop’s forearm.

Jones sacrificed, and the Tigers, obviously aware that Nos. 3 and 4 hitters Downing and Reggie Jackson had combined five hits in their last 53 at-bats, didn’t hesitate to walk Wally Joyner to load the bases.

Downing managed a high fly to medium left-center, but Boone, who won’t remind anyone of Rickey Henderson, tagged and set off for the plate. He would have been out by 10 feet, but catcher Lowry couldn’t handle the hop on Pat Sheridan’s accurate throw.

Jackson ended the threat by grounding to first.

The Angels went ahead, 2-1, in the sixth on a single by DeCinces, a Rob Wilfong sacrifice and Schofield’s looping single to right.

They increased their advantage to 4-1 in the seventh. Jones hit his homer to right-center, and a walk and a single set up DeCinces’ RBI single to right.

But, in the final analysis, this night belonged to Sutton.

“Don Sutton was very good, very good,” Angel Manager Gene Mauch said. “He was near the end after the seventh and he said something about it on the bench.

“Don Sutton does not walk the No. 9 hitter with a three-run lead.”

Unless he’s tired, that is, and that was the signal for both pitcher and manager that it was time to cool it.

Angel Notes

Manager Gene Mauch decided to shuffle the starting rotation to allow both John Candelaria, who received a cortisone injection in his left elbow Tuesday, and Mike Witt an extra day of rest. Rookie Ray Chadwick (0-3) will start Saturday against Detroit’s Frank Tanana, moving Candelaria to Sunday and Witt to Monday against Baltimore. “Both get an extra day,” Mauch said. “And they still will get the same number of starts the rest of the way and they’re still pitching against the teams we want them to pitch against.” Candelaria, who said his arm felt “fine” after batting practice Thursday, could obviously use the rest. “I think Witt will really appreciate it, too,” Mauch said. “He certainly appreciated it after the All-Star break. He hasn’t pitched too bad since then.” Witt has seven wins in eight post-All-Star game outings, with three complete games and four games when he lasted eight innings or more. . . . Donnie Moore, who received a cortisone injection in his right shoulder Monday, didn’t look too happy as he strode toward the clubhouse during pregame warmups. How did his arm feel? “Great,” he said. Would he be ready if called Thursday night? “No.” Later, in front of his locker with an ice bag on the sore shoulder, he modified that to a curt: “I can go. I will pitch if needed tonight.” . . . Terry Forster, in Edmonton to rehabilitate his injured ankle, went one inning Wednesday against Phoenix and allowed five hits and five earned runs. . . . Mauch said he wasn’t that upset at the time an open pocket knife was hurled onto the field at Yankee Stadium, grazing the arm of Wally Joyner. “Then, after I sat on the airplane for a while, I started to think, ‘Gosh Almighty, if you’re going to get hurt, you’d like to have a chance to do something about it,’ ” Mauch said. “Then I started thinking about what might have happened. It’s scary.”