Angels Get 6 Homers in 7th Straight Win : Pinch-Hitters Hendrick and Jones Deliver 2 of Them

Willie Fraser, who has seen the dark side of the home run during his rookie season, took special delight in the six homers delivered by Angel hitters Sunday afternoon, blows that smoothed Fraser’s path to a 13-3 victory over the Chicago White Sox.

“I like seeing somebody else give up those (bleeps) instead of me,” Fraser said with a grin, thoroughly savoring this new experience. “Hell, I’ve given up 15 of them this year. They got me for four in Baltimore and three in Minnesota.

“It’s pretty sweet to see us do that to somebody else.”

Against four Chicago pitchers, the Angels did that and more.

Brian Downing opened the game by driving Bill Long’s third pitch into the left-field seats for his fourth leadoff home run of the season.

Devon White hit his second home run in two days.

Wally Joyner hit two home runs--one in the first inning, another in the sixth--which is the fourth time he has hit two home runs in a game as an Angel.

And, in the biggest news of the day, George Hendrick and Ruppert Jones equaled a major league record by hitting pinch-homers in the same game--with Jones delivering his while batting for Hendrick.

A pinch-home run while pinch-hitting for a hitter of a pinch-home run.

“And I was thinking about going for the hat trick and send Doug (DeCinces) up there for Ruppert,” Angel Manager Gene Mauch said. “But suppose he would have. What kind of jerk would that make you? You try to win while not having too much fun at someone else’s expense.”

As it was, the Angels tied a single-game club record with their six home runs. And by the time all the baseballs stopped rattling around the seats in the Comiskey Park bleachers, the Angels had won their seventh consecutive game, completing their second straight series sweep on the road.

The Angels are still below .500 (37-38) and they have yet to completely erase the skid marks from the nine-game losing streak that sideswiped the team in late May, but, as Mauch put it, “We’re getting there.”

Next up are three games in Cleveland, home of the last-place team in the American League East and the most wretched pitching in the major leagues.

For the Angels, a winning record is suddenly a possibility again.

“This was overdue,” said Joyner, who now has 17 home runs and 60 RBIs. “Three or four weeks ago, the Angels were right where the White Sox are now. We went through a bad situation and there was nothing we could do about it. We played as well as we could with all the problems the pitching staff was having.

“Nobody wants to skid, but even when we were losing nine in a row, I think everybody was feeling that this was going to happen sometime.”

The Angels, who rank 13th in the American League in hitting, broke out against a pitcher who had shut them out three weeks earlier. On June 7 in Anaheim, Long beat the Angels, 4-0, on seven hits.

Sunday, Long surrendered four hits before getting an out as Downing homered, White beat out an infield single, Joyner homered and Jack Howell doubled.

Long lasted only one out into the third inning, leaving with two runners on base and setting up Hendrick’s three-run pinch-home run off Ray Searage. Hendrick was batting for left fielder Mark Ryal, who played there long enough to make only one at-bat.

Hendrick, too, made just one plate appearance. With a right- hander, Ralph Citarella, pitching in the fifth inning, Mauch sent the left-handed-hitting Jones up for Hendrick and, soon, the Angels became the 34th team in big league history to hit two pinch-homers in the same game.

Fraser (5-5), who has been floored by the home-run pitch more than once this year, was rendered almost giddy by the 13 runs provided him by his teammates. In Fraser’s five losses, the Angels scored a combined 10 runs. He lost three decisions by scores of 3-0, 3-2 and 4-0.

“I loved it,” Fraser said of the Angels’ 14-hit attack Sunday. “I figured it was just a matter of time.”

Mauch, however, frankly wondered if Fraser would know what to do with the biggest lead he had ever seen in the major leagues.

“That was a good learning experience for him,” Mauch said. “Young pitchers have to learn what to do with a big lead. (Roger) Clemens had a nine-run lead explode on him the other day.

“With a big lead, there’s a tendency to just get the ball over the plate. Then, they hit a few and you can’t get it back. But Butch (catcher Wynegar) kept him working out there, having him hit the corners.”

Or, as Fraser described it, “As long as you don’t slop it up there and keep throwing hard, you’ll be OK.”

Fraser was stung only once--Greg Walker hit a solo home run in the third inning--and was able to finish with a five-hitter.

As Fraser discovered, the home run can be a thing a beauty when your vantage point is from the dugout instead of the pitcher’s mound.

Angel Notes

John Candelaria is eligible to come off the disabled list on July 3, but at this point, even Aug. 3 would appear a premature target date for the pitcher’s return. Candelaria, who was placed on the disabled list a second time June 19 because he had stopped attending counseling sessions, has been checked into an in-patient treatment center and is expected to undergo therapy there for at least one month. The Angels would not disclose the name of the facility, but Candelaria is reportedly cooperating with the team, which selected the center he entered. . . . Wally Joyner hit his two home runs Sunday while playing on a sore right knee. “There’s something wrong with it and I’m going to have X-rays when we get home,” said Joyner, talking with reporters with a huge ice bag wrapped around the knee. “Somebody hit a one-hopper off my kneecap a month ago and it started bothering me about a week ago. I don’t know what it is; it could be a hairline fracture or some inflammation under the kneecap. This won’t keep me out of the lineup, but I’d like to know what it is.”

Home run records: The Angels’ six home runs tied a club record previously set on June 20, 1980, against Boston and equaled on April 23, 1985, against Oakland. In the Boston game, Freddie Patek, the Angels’ 5-foot-5 shortstop, hit three home runs at Fenway Park. The pinch-home runs by George Hendrick and Ruppert Jones tied a feat that had been done 16 times in the American League, most recently by Texas’ Oddibe McDowell and Darrell Porter last Sept. 1. And Brian Downing’s first-inning home run was the 14th leadoff home run of his career.

Not every Angel thoroughly enjoyed Sunday’s victory. Gary Pettis was called out on a stolen-base attempt in the second inning, although television replays showed he may have beaten catcher Carlton Fisk’s throw with a head-first slide. “If he was safe, that’s the third stolen base they’ve taken away from him this season,” Gene Mauch said. An inning later, Pettis lost track of a deep but catchable drive off the bat of Harold Baines, playing it instead off the center-field fence for a triple. Quipped Mauch: “Gary took his Gold Glove out with him that inning. He wore it.”

Donnie Moore, making his second appearance for the Palm Springs Angels, allowed three singles but no runs while working one inning Sunday night as he continued his rehabilitation. Moore, coming back from tendinitis in his shoulder, had pitched two scoreless innings Thursday night for Palm Springs. Moore threw just 16 pitches in his one-inning appearance Sunday, 10 for strikes, and was credited with the save in Palm Springs’ 4-3 victory over Fresno in the first game of a doubleheader. “I feel pretty good, I feel better than I did the last time I threw,” Moore said. “My mechanics were better this time. . . . It wasn’t like they were hitting the ball hard. That’s what happens (the Fresno singles) when you’re around the plate.”