For DeCinces, Grand Slam Is Best Revenge : Candelaria Beats Red Sox, but Isn’t Around at the End

In baseball, gloves are used for fielding, not slapping faces, and pistols at dawn would put someone on the disabled list permanently. But pride is put on the line daily in the this game and, on Sunday afternoon, Doug DeCinces and John Candelaria reacted in their own way to individual insults, real or imagined.

In the sixth inning of the Angels’ 11-4 victory over Boston at Anaheim Stadium, Red Sox pitcher Wes Gardner issued an intentional walk to Wally Joyner, loading the bases with two outs for DeCinces. As Gardner completed this task, DeCinces stood on the on-deck circle, seeing red.

“In that situation, what they’re telling you is that they’d rather pitch to you than somebody else,” DeCinces said. “They did it to me (Saturday) night and I know I was upset. I always take it personally.”

So DeCinces got mad. And then he got even. On an 0-1 pitch from Gardner, DeCinces cleared the fences and cleared the bases with a grand slam, the sixth of his career and his first as an Angel. Such a display of temper gave the Angels an 11-1 advantage, which meant a 10-run margin of error for Candelaria, the Angels’ starting pitcher. Complete games by Candelaria are rare--just 2 in 34 starts as an Angel--but if ever there was an opportunity for one, Sunday was it.

Candelaria limited the Red Sox to three hits through six innings and finished off a scoreless seventh. He needed just six more outs.

As it turned out, Mauch would allow him only to record one.

Wade Boggs and Marty Barrett led off the eighth with singles before Candelaria got Bill Buckner to force Boggs at third. That brought up Don Baylor, the designated hitter whom the Angels let get away--a point Baylor seems to delight in driving home whenever the Angels are in the opposing dugout.

This time, Baylor made life miserable for Candelaria, depositing a full-count pitch over the left-field fence for a three-run home run. The ball had barely stopped rattling around the outfield seats before Angel Manager Gene Mauch sent pitching coach Marcel Lachemann to the mound, instructed to bring Candelaria back with him.

Candelaria left seething. He stalked straight into the clubhouse, quickly showered and dressed, and bolted out of locker room before reporters could arrive, just seconds after the final out.

“He’s probably mad as hell,” Mauch admitted. “No pitcher wants to come out after throwing a home run. You’d like to leave with a better taste in your mouth.”

Someone asked Mauch “if it was unusual for Candelaria to walk out like that.” Mauch bristled and then some--spewing forth a string of expletives that, roughly translated, accused the questioner of trying to “make something out of nothing.”

Mauch answered a few more questions and finally cooled down. He later apologized to the reporter and, as a good-will gesture, picked up the plate on his desk and said, “Here, have my sandwich.”

Mauch then elaborated on Candelaria’s outburst.

“It was probably somewhere between being mad for throwing it and being mad for coming out,” he said. “I know I would have been ticked off. But he had thrown 120 pitches (actually 108). That’s enough.”

Candelaria failed to get the complete game, but he left in possession of his fourth victory in four decisions this season. He allowed seven hits, two walks and struck out three in his 7 innings. Reliever DeWayne Buice finished up, retiring the last five Red Sox hitters.

The Angels broke open a 1-1 tie with home runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings.

Jack Howell was the first to connect--hitting a two-run homer after Boston left fielder Dave Henderson dropped a line drive by DeCinces for a two-base error.

In the fifth inning, streaking Wally Joyner struck again. His two-run home run, which knocked Red Sox starter Al Nipper (3-1) out of the game, was his second of this series and his seventh in the past two weeks.

This, the Red Sox considered an insult. And they responded with that timeless custom--a brush-back pitch.

Reliever Jeff Sellers came on to replace Nipper and immediately delivered one high and tight to the next Angel batter, which happened to be DeCinces. DeCinces retaliated in kind--smashing a line drive up the middle that just eluded Sellers.

Real vengeance, however, came in the sixth inning, when Red Sox Manager John McNamara had his second relief pitcher, Gardner, intentionally walk Joyner and pitch to DeCinces.

DeCinces admitted that his first thought was: “Home run.”

“Obviously, with the bases loaded, that’s the ultimate way to get back at a pitcher for an intentional walk,” DeCinces said. “That’s the ultimate success for a hitter, a home run with the bases loaded. They don’t come that often.”

DeCinces remembers well his last grand slam. The date was Aug. 27, 1981. DeCinces was a member of the Baltimore Orioles. The opposing team was the Angels.

“And Gene Mauch walked the guy in front of me in that one, too,” DeCinces said. “Go ask him. The pitcher was Don Aase. And the guy he walked, I think, was John Lowenstein.”

Obviously, DeCinces has a thing about intentional walks. Maybe had a bad experience with them as a Little Leaguer.

Earlier this week, the Milwaukee Brewers tried the same thing against DeCinces--and DeCinces responded the same way, with a home run.

“This is the second or third time this has happened,” said Joyner, Sunday’s walkee. “The way I figure it, that’s at least (worth) a lunch on the road.

“So, Doug’s gonna take me out and we’re gonna have a good time.”

Angel Notes

Hoping to take advantage of the schedule--five off-days in May, two this week--Gene Mauch will shuffle his pitching staff so that Mike Witt, John Candelaria and Don Sutton will start 17 of the Angels’ first 22 games this month. To set this plan in motion, Mauch will pitch Witt on three days’ rest on Wednesday in Milwaukee, use the off-day Thursday to skip Urbano Lugo’s turn and then come back with Candelaria, Willie Fraser and Sutton for the three games in Boston. “Witt will get six starts, Candelaria will get six, Sutton five and the two kids (Lugo and Fraser) will split the other five,” Mauch said. “It works out perfectly, if there’s no rain. But we’ll probably run into rain and not play for a week.” . . . Immediately after Sunday’s game, Mauch left for Palm Springs to watch Bob Boone catching a California League game. If Mauch likes what he saw, Boone could be activated in time for Tuesday’s game in Milwaukee, although the original timetable has Boone joining the Angels next Monday in Detroit. . . . Mark McLemore was credited with a stolen base when he sneaked from second to third base while Boston catcher Marc Sullivan argued a call with home plate umpire Dan Morrison in the third inning. Morrison had just ruled that Dick Schofield beat Sullivan’s tag to score on a close play at home, prompting Sullivan to turn his back on the infield for an impromptu debate. “I was watching him argue and he kept turning and turning,” McLemore said. “As long as I could see the side of him, he could’ve picked me off. But as soon as I saw his back, I was gone.” McLemore said he made that play several times in the minor leagues. “Catchers make a lot of mistakes in the minors,” he said. “Pitchers, too. A ground ball to first and the pitcher covers the bag and then keeps running down the line--I’ve scored on that a lot of times.” . . . The Angels took two of three games from the Red Sox but Wally Joyner said that hardly makes amends for what happened between these teams last October. “What’s the revenge?” Joyner asked. “We lost last year and there’s no way we can get that back. Winning today doesn’t change that.” . . . Former Angel infielder Rob Wilfong, released by the team the day before the season opener, will fly to St. Louis today for a tryout with the San Francisco Giants.