Baseball Notebook : Boggs Says He’s Ready for Angels

The Angels and Boston Red Sox, who open the American League playoffs tonight, are hardly strangers to one another, but Cookie Rojas, the Angels’ advance scout, spent the last week of the regular season here, updating his Red Sox dossier.

Rojas met with Manager Gene Mauch Monday. Did he provide new insights and pitching patterns? Rojas would not reveal details, but did say: “We might have to test the third baseman.”

He was talking about Wade Boggs, who will return to the Boston lineup after missing the final four regular-season games because of a small tear in his right hamstring.

Will Mauch employ his beloved Little Ball against the ailing Boggs, bunting frequently?

“We’ll do everything we can whenever we can,” Mauch said. “You don’t count on a high-scoring game when you’ve got a Roger Clemens and Mike Witt out there.”

Is Boggs concerned about the possibility of the Angels’ bunting? He shook his head and said it’s difficult to bunt Clemens’ fastball because of the movement.

“And once I have the rubber sheath on my leg (to protect the injured muscle) it doesn’t inhibit me in any way,” he said.

Is he 100%? Boggs said it is more like 90%. He said there is still pain, but the intensity has diminished. He credited hot and cold treatments, but said he would use baling wire and glue if necessary.

“Wild horses couldn’t keep me out of the lineup,” he said. “I’m ready to go full bore until it blows. Hopefully, it won’t blow.

“As for hitting, it doesn’t bother me at all. It’s only when I have to bust out of the (batter’s) box or go from first to third that it figures to be a problem.”

Besides the heat that he puts on his leg, Boggs has taken some of it for his reluctance to play in that final series against the New York Yankees, rejecting a duel with Don Mattingly for the AL batting title.

The idle Boggs emerged with his third crown, hitting .357. Mattingly’s 8-for-19 series against Boston left him at .352.

“The playoffs were just too important to have risked a major injury,” Boggs said. “I wouldn’t have forgiven myself if I had aggravated it playing in a game that had no bearing in the race.

“I don’t feel that I owe anyone an apology. I’m proud of what I did this year. I started out with the goal of getting 200 hits and 100 walks, and I did it.

“The hardest thing I had to do was dealing with the death of my mother (in a mid-June auto accident). It took a great deal of concentration to deal with the loss of someone so close to me.

“I had a tough time concentrating in July, but I’ve held it together the last two months and that alone should give me a lot of confidence for years to come.

“I just wish she was here to experience this with me.”

Boston catcher Rich Gedman threw out 44 of 86 opposing base stealers during the regular season, but he, too, may be tested because of the foul tip he absorbed on his right shoulder in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader with New York. He left that game for precautionary X-rays and missed Sunday’s finale as well.

Will the Angels run? That is, will Gary Pettis, who stole 50 bases, run?

According to Mauch, If the opportunity is there, the Angels may take it. The problem will be getting Pettis on base. “His next hit off Clemens will be his first,” Mauch said.

Clemens is the man the Angels have to beat.

It is otherwise conceded that the Angels have a deeper pitching staff than Boston and that the Red Sox have faith in only four of their pitchers--Clemens, Bruce Hurst, Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd and relief ace Calvin Schiraldi.

The six others--Sammy Stewart, Bob Stanley, Steve Crawford, Joe Sambito, Tim Lollar and Al Nipper--had a cumulative earned-run average of 4.96.

They permitted 248 earned runs, 533 hits and 728 baserunners in 450 innings.

Completing his 25th year as a major league manager, Mauch was asked about the absence of a pennant.

“I’d rather have this team win than eat when I’m hungry,” he said. “Not because I haven’t done it, but because it’s the thing to do. I mean, back when people thought I was hot stuff I may have taken a little credit, but it doesn’t take long to learn players carry the manager.

“To win this would be the greatest highlight of my baseball life.”

Said John McNamara, the Boston manager: “The usual rallying cry around here is, ‘Wait until next year.’ Well, next year starts tomorrow night. We’re ready.”

The suspicion is that Tom Seaver, out of the playoffs with a strained right knee but eligible to return for the World Series if the Red Sox make it, has pitched his last game for Boston.

It goes beyond the knee injury that is not expected to heal in time for Seaver to pitch in the Series.

The Red Sox will have to pay him $1,125,000 if they retain him next year, when he will be 42.

General Manager Lou Gorman hedged when asked if Seaver might be back.

“I wouldn’t want to answer that right now,” he said. “We have to get the coaches’ input and the manager’s input. We have to look at who we have coming up and where our staff lies. Who knows? Tom might make the decision himself.”

More than 24 hours before delivering his first playoff pitch, Mike Witt had reason to celebrate. His wife, Lisa, gave birth to their second child and first son, 7-pound 7-ounce Justin Michael, at St. Jude’s Hospital in Fullerton.

Former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee was on a local television show discussing a certain 40-year-old designated hitter.

“I hate Reggie Jackson,” Lee said. “I was telling Joe (Sambito) to drill him. But he said, ‘You don’t drill a guy who you can get out.’ ”

During a press conference Monday, Jackson was asked where he thought he would bat in the lineup tonight. Mauch hadn’t announced his batting order and could use seven different ones against Boston, if the series lasts that long.

“Nobody has the guts to ask Gene Mauch where they’re going to hit in the lineup,” Jackson said.

Did that suggest Reggie was at odds with another manager?

Jackson, who has been critical of Mauch throughout the season, grinned sheepishly and tried to wriggle his way out of the question.

“I honestly think Bob Boone has the best relationship (on the Angels) with Gene,” he said, “but I consider my relationship with Gene to be very special. We disagree, to each other’s face and in his room. Two men disagreeing on different theories.

“But the manager is the boss. I’ve always gone with that. With every manager I ever played for, even Billy Martin, I did what I was told.”

Staff writer Mike Penner contributed to this story.