A MIDSEASON REPORT : ANGELS : At Least, They’re in Right Place: the Anyone-Can-Win-It West

Today at County Stadium, the California Angels will open the second half of their 1987 season, thanking their lucky stars that they are not the Detroit Angels, the Baltimore Angels or the Boston Angels.

Neighborhood matters these days in the American League, and for those unfortunate enough to grow up on the wrong side of the tracks--i.e., the East Division--you’d better play close to .600 ball if you want to keep up with the Joneses. Or the New York Yankees.

In the West, life is simpler. Only in the West Division can a team lose two starting pitchers and its best reliever, play games with only two-thirds of a batting order, reel off a nine-game losing streak, spend more than a month below .500 and then resurface in mid-July, smack-dab in the middle of a title race.

That team, of course, is the Angels. At 46-43, they are three games over .500. They are also three games out of first place. Next to Wally Joyner and Devon White, the best thing going for this team is its residence in the win-one, lose-one AL West, where even the Seattle Mariners can be contenders.

In late May, this team looked to be the late Angels. The Angels closed the month by losing those nine games in a row to New York, Baltimore and Toronto--the second-longest losing streak in franchise history--and fell 7 1/2 games behind the pace set by the first-place Kansas City Royals.

Kirk McCaskill and John Candelaria were on the disabled list. The rest of the pitching staff belonged in a bunker. The hitters grew weary from the daily task of having to score seven or eight runs--and then wondering if seven or eight would hold up.

Even Manager Gene Mauch, the original Mr. Silver Lining, was beginning to worry.

“When we were struggling last year, other people struggled with us,” Mauch said, reflecting on the Angels’ 1986 division championship season. “We were struggling like hell, and people were refusing to do anything about it.

“That’s no longer the case. We can’t afford to fall too far behind Kansas City, not with their pitching. We got to start winning here.”

The Angels didn’t start for a while. On June 3, they fell into last place--the latest they had occupied such a position since August, 1980. They dropped eight games below .500. They got there by losing 16 of 20 games in one stretch.

Meanwhile, in Kansas City, the Royals seemed ready to run away. With Bret Saberhagen on a 30-win pace and George Brett back in the lineup after missing nearly two months to injury, cockiness began to set in around Kansas City. “We’ll be counting down the magic number in August,” proclaimed Danny Tartabull, a second-year outfielder.

Then, in the best Western tradition, the Royals gave it all away. In the span of precisely one month--30 days--Kansas City went from five games up to five games out.

Minnesota, scattershot pitching and all, became the new leader. Seattle, of all clubs, became a factor. And the Angels, amazingly, were off the hook.

They were still eight games out on June 24, after a three-game sweep in Texas, when Mauch contemplated the improbability of such a turnaround.

“Do you know how long it takes to overcome a trip like the one we had in Toronto, Baltimore and New York?” Mauch asked, referring to damage wrought by May’s nine-game skid. “A looonnng time. You have to win 18 of 27 just to get even, just to get back to Square 1.”

Or, you can win eight straight, which will get you close. That’s what the Angels did.

The Texas sweep launched an 8-1 trip that righted the Angels and returned them to .500 on June 29. During that span, they whittled their deficit in the standings from 8 1/2 games to 4 in just four days.

Now, buoyed by a 7-4 home stand, which included a sweep of Boston and a five-game winning streak, the Angels reconvene after the All-Star break within striking range of the division lead. They are in fourth place, but just a game out of second and three out of first.

They are also a half-game ahead of fifth-place Seattle and 3 1/2 ahead of sixth-place Texas.

So from here, for the Angels, it can go either way. Pick a number between one and six and you stand a fair chance of guessing where the Angels will eventually finish.

It’s a mediocre lot. The So-So Six. But one of them will reach the playoffs, and Mauch is simply grateful for the second chance to be part of the scramble. “We’re a lot better off than we were,” he said.

They could stand to get a lot better, though. The Angels have as many problems as pluses. For every Devon White, for instance, there’s a Gary Pettis.

A breakdown of what’s right and wrong with the Angels as they enter the second half:

WHAT’S RIGHT

Wally and White: From June 6 through July 6, the month in which reconstruction began, the Angels did not win a game in which Joyner or White did not drive in a run. Joyner, 25, leads the club in home runs with 20 and is second in the league in runs batted in with 73. White, 24, leads the team in batting with a .286 average, has hit 17 home runs and driven in 53 runs.

Neither player was in the major leagues in 1985, which says all one needs to know about the direction the Angels have taken since Mike Port became general manager.

In a year without Mark McGwire, White would be closing in on the Rookie of-the Year award. His defense and his speed--he has 20 stolen bases--have lived up to advance notice, but his power at the plate has surpassed all reasonable expectations. Before 1987, White had never hit more than 14 home runs in a season.

“Defense, speed, hitting, hitting for power. Devo shows you everything almost every night,” Mauch says.

Yet Joyner’s first half may rank as the bigger surprise. After he concluded 1986 with a second half during which he hit .257 and just two homers, Joyner was considered by many to be a six-week wonder. He had 16 home runs by the end of May and 22 by the end of the season. Despite his sizable rookie splash, expectations plunged for Joyner in 1987.

But, save for the dramatics and some batting-average points, Joyner has come back to equal the spectacular first half that earned him a starting berth on the 1986 AL All-Star team. At this point in 1986, Joyner was batting .313 with 20 home runs and 72 RBIs. His ’87 numbers: .277, 20, 73.

“Was I a fluke? I still might be,” Joyner says, grinning. “Last year, in the second half, I had all this sickness in my leg. (Joyner developed an infection in his right shin in early August.) It wound up taking a toll on me.

“This year, so far, it’s just been a case of me staying away from injuries. Hopefully, I can have a healthy second half this time. “

Four starters: It was a rough go for a while, but the Angel pitching rotation is working on four cylinders again. Five, of course, is the preferred number, but four sure beats two, which was all the Angels had in May, when Mike Witt and Willie Fraser were the only reliable starters.

With an 11-5 record and a 3.31 earned-run average, Witt earned his second straight invitation to the All-Star game, although a sore arm kept him out of Tuesday’s 13-inning affair. The soreness, caused by tendinitis in his right shoulder, has bothered Witt periodically throughout the first three months, but he still has been able to pitch into the seventh inning in 14 of his 20 starts.

Fraser suffers from a different shoulder malady--his arm goes through stages of fatigue--but he has pitched four complete games and has won four of his last six decisions. Overall, Fraser is 6-6 with a 3.72 ERA in his rookie season.

The return of McCaskill from the disabled list, coupled with the return of Don Sutton from the endangered-species list, have been Mauch’s brightest recent developments.

McCaskill, who missed 2 1/2 months after undergoing elbow surgery in late April, will start for the first time since the operation today against the Milwaukee Brewers. Before his stay on the disabled list, McCaskill was 2-0 with a 2.57 ERA in three starts.

“I was pitching well,” McCaskill said. Then, alluding to Saberhagen’s early numbers, he added, “Who knows, I might have been the pitcher with the 12-1 start.”

At 42, Sutton was the pitcher with the 3-8 start. He went from May 6 through June 13 without winning a game--a stretch of seven outings--and had an ERA of 5.02 before ending that drought.

But since then, Sutton has started seven games without allowing more than two runs in any, lifting his record back to 6-9.

The Buice squad: Donnie Moore has been on and off active duty, Chuck Finley and Gary Lucas have been in and out of Mauch’s doghouse and Mike Cook has been in and out of the major leagues.

Along the way, the Angel bullpen took the Angels in and out of ballgames.

But with the unlikely combination of scrawny 29-year-old rookie DeWayne Buice and 35-year-old National League reject Greg Minton, the Angels have recently happened into a wealth of relief.

After a 10-year minor league apprenticeship noted more for clubhouse high jinks and Maxwell Smart impersonations, Buice joined the Angels in late April and has since delivered a team-high nine saves, along with three victories and a 2.81 ERA. During one stretch that ended last week, Buice inherited 14 runners and stranded all of them, leaving the bases loaded twice.

Minton, released by the San Francisco Giants in early June, has contributed six saves, a 2-0 record and a 2.25 ERA since joining the Angels. Already, the six saves rank as Minton’s most since 1984, when he had 19 with the Giants.

The left-handers, Finley and Lucas, have also recovered from starts that left them with respective ERAs of 5.01 and 9.47 after May. In their last 41 innings, Finley and Lucas have combined to yield just six earned runs for a combined 1.31 ERA.

Defense: Rookie second baseman Mark McLemore sometimes favors flash over fundamentals, and the left-field platoon of Jack Howell and George Hendrick can be a carnival, but as a unit, the Angels still field the soundest defense in the division.

Shortstop Dick Schofield and third baseman Doug DeCinces have been steady, White and Pettis have been spectacular at times, Joyner displays finesse at first base and catcher Bob Boone continues to throw out potential base stealers.

The Angels learned Wednesday, however, that they will have to get along without Schofield for a while. He injured his left shoulder last Sunday when he fell on the basepath while trying to get out of the way of a ball hit by Boone and Wednesday’s examination revealed a minor separation. He is expected to be out of action for at least a week, although he accompanied the team on the trip.

Then there’s goalie-turned-pitcher Jack Lazorko, who boasts that he’s “the best fielding pitcher in baseball.” He may be right.

With such glove work, the Angels have been able to bail out their cast of retread pitchers and mask some of the many deficiencies in their batting order.

Which brings us to . . .

WHAT’S WRONG

Gary Pettis: He seemed on the verge on developing into a legitimate major league hitter in 1986, batting .258 with 58 RBIs during the regular season and .346 during the playoffs.

Now, the Angels are wondering if he’ll ever get there.

Despite all the tutoring sessions with hitting specialist Harry Walker and all the hours of extra batting practice, Pettis has regressed. In 303 at-bats, he is batting .221. In 89 games, he has struck out 95 times. In the American League, only Texas’ Pete Incaviglia and Kansas City’s Bo Jackson have struck out more often.

Incaviglia and Jackson, though, compensate by driving in runs and driving out an occasional homer. Not Pettis. He has 12 RBIs and 1 home run--an inside-the-park shot that he got when Oakland outfielders Dwayne Murphy and Mike Davis knocked one another silly in a collision while chasing Pettis’ fly ball.

Anaheim Stadium fans boo Pettis after each strikeout. Mauch says he doubts that Pettis can ever rid himself of the sharp uppercut that cripples his batting stroke.

Port, too, has publicly expressed doubt.

“The ability is there and, I think, the spirit is there, but it’s frustrating because Gary is able to do so well (in batting practice) one day and it’s like, ‘That’s what we want.’ Then the next day, it’s ‘Where’d it go?’ ” Port said.

“Hopefully, we will not figuratively run out of time. Hopefully, for Gary Pettis’ sake, he will not be like Mike Port, to whatever extent I played. I had a pretty good hitting instructor named Duke Snider and I finally figured out something about my swing and what Duke was talking about.

“That was the good news. The bad news was that it was about the day before yesterday when I figured it out.”

Batting behind Boone: After Boone takes his cuts from his usual No. 6 position in the Angel lineup, Mauch’s batting order enters a black hole. Murderers Row this is not:

No. 7: Schofield, .237.

No. 8: Pettis, .221.

No. 9: McLemore, .218.

Basically, Mauch is playing a nine-man game without three pieces. And against left-handed pitchers, Mauch starts George Hendrick, who is hitting .220. And when DeCinces--.242 after a miserable start--is slumping, Angel run production is cut to the trio of Joyner, White and Brian Downing.

DeCinces has a history of strong finishes and the Angels will need another one from him. Schofield, when he returns, should be capable of more but Boone, at .268, is hitting over his head. He figures to level out between .240 and .250.

Pettis and McLemore? They comprise the millstone the Angels will have to drag with them the rest of the way.

The fifth starter: That again? Yes, the incredible saga continues.

For those who thought the situation was bad in 1986, when everyone from Jim Slaton to Ray Chadwick to Vern Ruhle washed out as the Angels’ No. 5 starting pitcher, welcome to 1987.

Urbano (Oh No) Lugo is back in Edmonton after five starts yielded a 9.32 ERA. His spot has since been shared by Jerry Reuss and Lazorko, who have encountered mixed results.

Reuss, who came to the Angels after being released by both the Dodgers and the Reds, won his first three decisions but has been shelled in his last two outings, allowing six runs in two innings in his most recent start. Lazorko, now a candidate for long relief, is 2-5 with a 5.06 ERA.

A solution could be forthcoming, as soon as John Candelaria returns from the disabled list. But that is an if-and-when proposition. Candelaria’s counseling therapy could end in two weeks or two months.

Donnie Moore: A weight-training program was designed to rid Moore of the rib and shoulder problems that limited him to 21 saves in 1986, but both are back and Moore is back on the disabled list for the second time this season.

Moore missed all of June before testing his body twice last home stand. He gave up 6 hits and 2 runs in 3 innings, was booed both times and suffered twinges of pain in the same troublesome areas. He was returned to the disabled list last Friday.

Moore’s absence has been eased by the surprising effectiveness of Buice and Minton, but how much longer can Mauch count on that type of success? When Moore is fit, when he can crank up the speed gun to 92 m.p.h., he is a late-inning stopper who can determine how games turn out, if not divisional races.

But that Moore has been scarce around Anaheim since 1985.

When Mauch looks at the second half and the six-pack heading into the division’s stretch drive, he admits there isn’t much to separate the field.

“Everything is so close that if any team loses its third-best player--not the best, but the third -best--for a long period of time, they’re going to be in a lot of trouble,” Mauch said.

A year ago, Mauch predicted that 90 victories would be enough to win the West. The Angels clinched the division title with their 90th victory, finishing the regular season with a record of 92-70.

This year, Mauch won’t even venture a guess, but if you’re willing to offer him another 92-70, he’s willing to talk a deal.

“I’d take last year’s record,” he said. “In a New York minute.”

AMERICAN LEAGUE WEST STANDINGS

Team W L Pct. GB Minnesota 49 40 .551 -- Oakland 46 41 .529 2 Kansas City 46 41 .529 2 Angels 46 43 .517 3 Seattle 45 43 .511 3 1/2 Texas 41 45 .477 6 1/2 Chicago 34 51 .400 13