Rangers Overpower the Angels : Incaviglia Hits 2 Long Home Runs to Lead Texas, 9-7

Angel Manager Gene Mauch sat in the dugout late Monday afternoon, enjoying his usual pregame meal--half a candy bar, a cup of milk and a cigarette--while he watched the Texas Rangers take batting practice.

When Ranger left fielder Pete Incaviglia stepped into the cage, Mauch said: “See those people standing out there in left? He’s gonna hit at least one up there.”

Sure enough, Incaviglia put the second pitch within 10 yards of the spot that Mauch had predicted.

Mauch then took a sip of milk, made a face and threw the cup under the bench. “Sour,” he said.

A few hours later, Mauch had an equally bad taste in his mouth after Incaviglia had hit two more prodigious shots into the left-field seats and the Rangers beat the Angels, 9-7, in front of 23,064 at Anaheim Stadium.

Incaviglia, who had tied a club record with four strikeouts Sunday and had struck out in six consecutive at-bats, homered in his first two at-bats Monday night as Texas scored four times in the first and third innings. He had just 5 hits in his last 29 at-bats before Monday and he leads the majors with 79 strikeouts, but his 15 homers, put end to end, might stretch halfway back to Arlington, Tex.

“The guy has strength, strength like (Oakland’s Jose) Canseco,” Mauch said. “In fact, he looks like he could lift weights Canseco wouldn’t even want to look at.”

Incaviglia’s propensity for emphasizing the long in long ball was evident Monday night. There was little doubt about the destination of either home run from the moment they left his bat. The only question was how far they would measure on the Angels’ new Tale of Tape: Four hundred and what?

The first, a two-run blast in the first inning, traveled 429 feet. The second, a bases-empty shot in the third, went 448 feet . . . and about 500 feet high.

“We’re used to playing in these ballgames,” Incaviglia said. “We get a 4-0 lead and then somebody ties it and then they go ahead and then we come back.”

That just about summed up this one. Incaviglia’s hits may have been the longest and loudest, but they were almost lost in the constant din of baseballs cracking off bats on this night. Seven pitchers were racked for 21 hits, 11 by the Rangers.

“Some nights, you say, ‘It’s a damn shame to waste that kind of pitching,’ ” Mauch said. “Tonight you say, ‘It’s a damn shame to waste this kind of hitting.’ ”

Mauch says he “enjoys the devil out of watching Jack Lazorko pitch” because he’s fascinated with the stocky right-hander’s tenacity. But Mauch couldn’t have been having too much fun this time as the Angels’ starter didn’t last long enough to do any battling.

Texas second baseman Jerry Browne led off the first inning with a drive to left-center. Center fielder Devon White came inches short of making a great running catch, but the ball got past him and Browne had a triple. Then Lazorko threw a wild pitch and Texas led, 1-0.

Two outs later, Pete O’Brien homered to center. Larry Parrish walked and then Incaviglia sent his first souvenir into the seats in left.

The Angels trailed, 4-0, but they could take solace in the fact that the earned-run average of the Texas starters over the last 34 games was 7.29.

And about to go higher.

Ranger pitchers had allowed slightly more than an average of one run per first inning before Monday, and starter Mike Jeffcoat did nothing to improve that average--or the staff ERA. He walked White and Brian Downing and then the struggling Doug DeCinces, who had not hit a home run since May 3, followed with a towering fly ball that cleared the left-field fence. A single by Bob Boone and an RBI double by Wally Joyner made it 4-4 after one inning.

The Angels went ahead, 6-4, in the second when Mark McLemore walked and stole second and third. He scored on Dick Schofield’s double to right-center. Then Schofield stole third and scored on Downing’s ground out.

Lazorko, who has lasted at least seven innings in each of his five previous starts, was removed after 2 innings. He allowed a one-out single to Ruben Sierra, a run-scoring double to O’Brien and left after getting Parrish on a fly ball to the warning track in center.

“Jack just didn’t make the pitches he wanted to make in the spots he wanted to make them this time,” Mauch said.

But then neither did reliever Chuck Finley, who didn’t even throw a pitch before he allowed a run to score. He balked home O’Brien--who had taken third on Parrish’s fly ball--when he tried to pick him off.

Finley didn’t have any better luck when he threw to the plate. His 3-and-0 pitch to Incaviglia ended up rattling around the empty bleacher seats in left field after falling just short of the second deck.

Finley then gave up a double to Oddibe McDowell and a run-scoring single to Mike Stanley. The Rangers’ second four-run inning of the night gave them an 8-6 lead.

The Angels cut the deficit to one in the fifth on Joyner’s 13th homer, a shot into the right-field bullpen. But Finley walked Scott Fletcher with two out in the sixth and Sierra doubled off the wall in right-center to give Texas a 9-7 lead.

The Rangers had better luck with their bullpen after the Angels pushed around Jeffcoat and then Mike Loynd. Jeff Russell allowed one run and six hits in five innings and Dale Mohorcic gave up just one hit while working the eighth and ninth.

“Pitching generally dictates just exactly how your team looks and plays,” Mauch said.

But don’t expect the Rangers to minimize the impact of those tape-measure homers.

Angel Notes

Donnie Moore, who had a third series of nerve-block injections Friday to ease the discomfort in his rib cage, predicted that he would come off the disabled list Thursday. “I’ll throw on the side (today) and go from there,” Moore said, “but I haven’t felt this good since sometime in 1985. I played a little catch today, and I’m throwing pain-free. I can get up in the morning without pain, I can bend over without pain. It’s great. I’m enthused.” Moore is also happy that the Angels’ medical team was finally able to discover the problem that has plagued him for the better part of two seasons. “The way the doctors explained it to me is there’s a layer of tissue between the ribs and the nerve,” Moore said. “The tissue is torn a little and the rib is rubbing against the nerve, which affects a bunch of nerve endings. That was the weird part, because it was sore in a different spot every day.” The first two nerve-block treatments--a series of four injections each--were aimed at a spot high in the right back of Moore’s rib cage. Friday’s two-injection procedure took care of a lesser problem in the lower right back. . . .Butch Wynegar, who had surgery on his right big toe May 18, also is optimistic. Wynegar took batting practice Monday, and said: “It felt pretty good. I can’t say exactly when I’ll be ready, but I know I’m way ahead of schedule. It will certainly be sooner than the three months they told me.” Wynegar has been jogging and said he can already get into a catching squat without discomfort. “Right now, running hard straight ahead and pushing off it are the biggest obstacles,” he said. “At least I can walk like a normal human being again.”