Angels Age a Little as the Indians, Led by Niekro, Win, 2-0

The geezers got together Monday night at Anaheim Stadium, more to commiserate than to celebrate a combined 90 years on the planet.

Life as an old dog has not been especially good for Don Sutton and Phil Niekro lately. Sutton, 42, entered the game with the poorest record (2-6) and earned-run average (5.37) in the Angel starting pitching rotation. And the 48-year-old Niekro, en route to a 3-5 start, was going even worse than his longtime rival and friend, waking Monday morning with an ERA of 6.24.

Cooperstown awaits both, five years after they retire. Maybe it had become time to start thinking about beginning that countdown. Maybe the calendar was beginning to wise up.

Maybe.

But for one evening, the sight of one another did Niekro and Sutton good. In a 2-0 Cleveland victory over the Angels, the great gray ones flashed back to the type of pitching duels they used to enjoy on a regular basis in their National League days of the early 1970s.

Niekro yielded just three singles in 7 innings, teaming with Scott Bailes to shut out the Angels for the second time in as many days. Sutton surrendered six hits in eight innings--winding up a loser only when two of those hits, fly balls by Cory Snyder and Brook Jacoby, wound up over the outfield fences.

“It seems like every time we get together, it’s a close game,” Niekro said. “Don pitched a great game, I was just more fortunate. I got away with more than he did.

“I was in trouble a lot more than Don. He just hung a couple of pitches.”

By that much, Sutton’s 1987 record fell to 2-7. It is the worst start of his 22-year major league career. But after watching Sutton fail to pitch out of the third inning in two of his previous three starts, Angel Manager Gene Mauch considered the latest outing a positive one.

“I believe this is an indication of what’s coming,” Mauch said. “I’d be more apt to gauge Sutton against a lineup like Cleveland’s than to gauge our hitters against a pitcher like Niekro.”

Niekro throws the dreaded knuckleball, that noted silencer of Angel bats. It is a particularly effective pitch at night, with no wind, which were the conditions in Anaheim Monday.

“The time to face Niekro is on a windy day,” Mauch said. “I don’t like facing him on a nice, calm evening like this.”

Wally Joyner, speaking on behalf of the Angel hitters, would prefer not to face Niekro at all. Asked if the knuckler were more difficult to see in the dark, Joyner said, “I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know how to throw one and I don’t know how to hit one.”

The Angels only hit three of them for singles. Mark McLemore had one, Brian Downing had another and Bob Boone the third. But they all came in different innings, doing no harm to Niekro.

Niekro and Bailes combined to extend the Angels’ scoreless streak to 18 innings, the streak having begun Sunday with Chicago White Sox right-hander Bill Long’s 4-0 victory over California. The back-to-back shutouts were the first suffered by the Angels since June 5-7, 1985.

Meanwhile, the back-to-back victories by Niekro and Indian teammate Steve Carlton, who beat the Oakland A’s Sunday, marked the first time two 300-game winners had won games for the same club on consecutive days.

Niekro got started on victory No. 315 by retiring the first seven Angels he faced before surrendering a third-inning single to McLemore. McLemore stole second and advanced to third on a wild pitch--the first of two for Niekro--but neither Boone nor Gary Pettis could bring him home.

The Angels loaded the bases with two outs in the fourth when Downing singled and both Jack Howell and Devon White walked. That brought up Dick Schofield, whose May tailspin has continued into June. After seeing his average drop from .262 to .217 in May, Schofield began the new month with three hits in 22 at-bats, entering Monday’s game at .209. And it slipped another point here, with Niekro getting Schofield to fly to center for the third out.

That’s as close as the Angels came to scoring through seven innings. They managed a single by Boone and a walk to Pettis in the fifth and another walk to McLemore in the seventh, but could score none of them.

In the eighth, the Angels finally got rid of Niekro when Downing drew a one-out walk. But that hardly helped matters. Bailes came on to strike out Howell and Doug DeCinces. For DeCinces, it was his third strikeout of the night--two of them stranding a total of three Angel baserunners.

“We’re doing everything good again except swinging the bat,” Mauch said.

Because they are not, and because the Indians got in two good swings Monday night, Sutton failed in his seventh attempt to win his third game of 1987. Career victory No. 313 remains at least another five days away.

Angel Notes

The Angels will re-activate George Hendrick either today or Wednesday, which figures to mean a return to Edmonton for third-string catcher Jack Fimple. It will also mean a new position for Hendrick, who earlier had platooned in right field. Devon White’s defense has entrenched the rookie in right, so Angel Manager Gene Mauch will platoon Hendrick in left field along with Jack Howell. “We’re gonna leave Devo out there,” Mauch said. “I can think of only one ball all year that he should have caught and didn’t--that triple by Willie Randolph in New York (a ball White misplayed last Monday night). And he’s made a lot of plays on balls nobody’s supposed to catch.” Hendrick’s reaction to the position switch? Said Mauch: “He told me, ‘Skip, I can catch ‘em or miss ‘em anywhere.’ ” . . . Hendrick has not played since April 21, the night he broke his right middle finger when Oakland’s Gene Nelson hit him on the hand with a pitch. Before that, he had appeared in just three games, batting .077 (1 for 13) with no RBIs. Hendrick has taken batting practice for the past five days and, according to Mauch, “is swinging the bat well. In fact, he’s been better than you have a right to expect.” . . . Later on during batting practice Monday, Mauch was watching Cleveland outfielder Doug Frobel take a few cuts in the batting cage. “He looks like Von Hayes,” Mauch said. “Doesn’t have his bank account, though.”