Lance Parrish Is Gone, but There’s Still a Catch : With the Right Combination of Nokes and Heath, the Tigers Have It Covered

Former Detroit Tigers catcher Lance Parrish isn’t having the time of his life at his new job in Philadelphia.

He is batting a measly .233. He’s not throwing out a lot of runners. And he’s hearing a lot of boos from Phillies fans. From Philadelphia, Detroit doesn’t look too bad.

Not that the Tigers would mind a postcard now and then from their former all-star, but, thanks to the team of rookie Matt Nokes and journeyman Mike Heath, they don’t exactly miss him.

“In all fairness, I think we have the very best staff of two catchers in the league right now,” Tiger Manager Sparky Anderson said. “I’m not sure there’s any one catcher that can do what they’ll do together. They’ll average out to .310 between them, 140 RBIs.”

In fact, the more Anderson talks about his catchers, particularly Nokes, the more he likes them.

Nokes, the rookie, has 20 home runs, 51 runs batted in, a .319 average through 72 games and will be playing in the All-Star game Tuesday in Oakland.

Heath, the veteran, is hitting .301 with 5 home runs and 22 RBIs in 51 games. While Nokes is in Oakland, Heath will return to his new house in Tampa, Fla., where he and his wife, Linda, are expecting their first child.

The two catchers shared time in a four-game series against the Angels. Nokes hit his 18th homer Thursday and his 19th Friday before sitting down Saturday to let Heath join in the fun. On Sunday, Nokes was back in the lineup against Mike Witt.

Saturday night, in the Tigers’ 12-5 drubbing of the Angels, Heath was among those who knocked starter Jerry Reuss around in the first two innings.

Heath, batting .293 before the game, inched his average over the .300 mark on a 3-for-6, 4-RBI night.

The 32-year-old right-hander singled and scored in the first, then doubled, drove in two runs and scored in the second off Reuss, and drove in two more runs with a seventh-inning single off reliever DeWayne Buice. All after grumbling his way through batting practice.

“Jerry made some good pitches,” Heath said. “But I saw the ball very well all night . . . which isn’t exactly the way it went during batting practice.”

Nokes, 23 and in his rookie season, clearly has demonstrated that he is the catcher of the future for the Tigers.

“There’s no pressure on Matthew, he doesn’t look at it that way,” Anderson said. “You have to know him. He’s all business in his preparation, but he plays the game for fun. . . . Nokes, to me right now is the No. 1 catcher in either league.”

The left-handed hitter from San Diego sits down against left-handed pitchers such as Reuss. And Heath steps up to the plate.

Heath, of course, was the catcher of the future in both Oakland and St. Louis. The Tigers picked him up last August in a deal that sent infielder Mike Laga and pitcher Ken Hill to the Cardinals. With free agency looming on Parrish’s horizon, the Tigers were looking for some insurance behind the plate.

That Heath would spend the rest of 1986 primarily spelling Parrish was a given, but even Heath doesn’t mind taking a back seat to Nokes.

“Matt Nokes has done a good job,” Heath said. “All I have to do is just try to pick it up when I’m in the lineup and help Matt when he’s playing.

“I’m willing to accept (platooning with Nokes). I want Matt to feel like he can come talk to me about the job.”

Said Anderson of his other catcher, “My right-hander gets the job done, too.”

Although Nokes is picking up most of the accolades both from his manager and the media, Heath is having his best year hitting since moving up to the majors in 1978. In fact, his brief tenure with the Tigers has been good for him from the beginning, when he homered in his debut off Steve Carlton, then with the Chicago White Sox.

With Parrish as a notable exception, the Tiger hitters remain fairly intact from their championship team of three years ago. At the All-Star break, the Tigers had the third-best record in the league and were trailing the Yankees in the East.

The Tigers, however, open the second half of the season with 20 of 23 games at home. After a 14-game trip the first two weeks of July, the Tigers could use the home cooking, but Heath said the home stand doesn’t really hold the key to the Tigers’ season.

“It’d be nice to just stay close to the Yankees (through the home stand),” Heath said. “Of course, it’d be nice to have a 15-game lead at the end of the year, but we just want to be able to play well and pull it up at the end of the year.”

By then, maybe Parrish can even keep his postcards.