After Shaky First Inning, Candelaria, Buice Throw a Clamp on White Sox, 6-4

Pitching problems? What pitching problems?

All of a sudden, the Angel pitching staff is getting people out.

Friday night, before a crowd of 39,585 at Anaheim Stadium, John Candelaria survived a rocky start and combined with DeWayne Buice on a five-hitter as the Angels beat the Chicago White Sox, 6-4.

After the White Sox scored four times in the first inning, Candelaria and Buice, aided by three double plays, faced only two batters over the minimum the rest of the way.

This occurred just one night after Jack Lazorko pitched into the ninth inning for the fourth straight time, picking up his first major league win with a complete game, and four nights after Mike Witt, who had been struggling, threw a five-hitter at New York.

“I’m not going to analyze the whole pitching staff,” Angel Manager Gene Mauch said. “I’ll talk about this game if you want.”

OK.

“If I had known before the game that I was going to get seven innings out of Candelaria,” Mauch said, “I would have been tickled to death.”

Candelaria, arrested twice within four weeks for allegedly driving while intoxicated, and placed on the 15-day disabled list May 15 because of “personal problems,” was a loser last Sunday at Toronto.

He was a winner against the White Sox after Jack Howell capped a six-run Angel fifth inning with his 11th home run, a three-run blow that landed in the box seats just to the right of the Angel bullpen in right field.

The White Sox managed only two singles in six more innings against Candelaria, who faced only 19 batters in that span.

Why the shaky first inning?

“I think maybe he was determined to pitch a powerful game,” Mauch said. “That’s the way I read it.

“The harder he threw it, the less action there was on the ball.”

Candelaria (5-2) dressed quickly and didn’t meet with reporters, but catcher Bob Boone said: “He didn’t have his best stuff. I thought he struggled through all seven innings.”

The White Sox have the American League’s worst offense--they brought a .236 batting average into the game--but in the first inning, they used the left-field foul pole for target practice.

First, Jerry Royster lined a one-out double into the corner.

Then, after Gary Redus’ apparently routine drive bounced off the heel of center fielder Gary Pettis’ glove for an error, Carlton Fisk hooked a Candelaria pitch into the box seats just inside the foul pole.

The three-run shot was the White Sox’s 24th home run in 11 games.

Two pitches later, Ivan Calderon finally made a direct hit on the pole, giving the White Sox a 4-0 lead with his fourth home run since coming off the disabled list Sunday.

It stayed that way until the fifth, when the Angels used two walks and four hits, including Howell’s three-run home run, to score six runs and chase White Sox starter Neil Allen.

Allen, making his first start since April 18, struck out the side in the first inning and worked out of a first-and-third, one-out jam in the third, getting Devon White and Wally Joyner to pop out.

But in the sixth, his control eluded him, and the Angels lit him up.

Bob Boone, fighting a 2-for-29 slump, lined a single to right field. After Mark McLemore walked, Pettis grounded a run-scoring single through the left side, and White lined an RBI single to left, cutting the Angel deficit to 4-2.

Allen (0-2), who has pitched only 8 innings this season because of a muscle imbalance in his right arm, then bounced a wild pitch into the photographers’ well next to the Angel dugout, moving Pettis to third and White to second.

Joyner’s ground-out to second scored Pettis, and Allen then walked Brian Downing.

When Howell followed with his 350-foot blast into the seats in right field, Allen was through for the night.

And the way they were hitting, so were the White Sox.

Buice, a well-traveled right-hander, walked two in the ninth, but leadoff batter Redus was erased when he was thrown out by Boone while attempting to steal second base as Fisk struck out.

Redus was the third runner caught stealing by Boone, who has thrown out 12 of 13.

Buice then walked Calderon.

Said Mauch, not happy with the walk at that point: “I asked Buice if Calderon had burned him at some time. He said, ‘He might have, considering all the places I’ve pitched.’ I said, ‘He could have hit it to Placentia and it wouldn’t have hurt you.’ ”

But a two-run homer by pinch-hitter Harold Baines, who followed, would have. Buice, though, got Baines to fly out to right field, wrapping up his third save.

Angel Notes

Those five bottles of champagne that Jack Lazorko and his brother had on ice Thursday night were gone by Friday morning. “We did a pretty good job on them,” said Lazorko, who pitched the Angels to a 3-2 win Thursday night, picking up his first major league victory in his 10th professional season. Did he ever doubt that he’d get his elusive first win? Not at all. “I’ve thrown well,” he said. “I have confidence in myself. If I had been getting blown out in the third or fourth inning, it would have been different. But I’ve been pitching pretty well. I’ve been in a pretty good groove this year. I knew it would come sooner or later.” Lazorko was 7-0 at Edmonton before being called up last month and has pitched into the ninth inning in each of his four starts for the Angels. . . . George Hendrick took batting practice for the second straight day, this time without the sponge he had wrapped around the bat to help absorb the shock. “He swung good--remarkably well,” Angel Manager Gene Mauch said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he played Monday or Tuesday. He’s hitting very well.” Mauch said that Hendrick, who hasn’t played since breaking the middle finger on his right hand April 21, also worked out at first base. “He said his arm was weak, but that throwing didn’t hurt his finger,” Mauch said. . . . In his first four games after coming off the disabled list Sunday, Chicago’s Ivan Calderon was 10 for 19 with 3 home runs and 11 runs batted in. Against Lazorko, he struck out three times and hit into a double play.