The Ailing Angels Win, 3-2 : Joyner Sits It Out With Rib Injury; Fraser Hit by Ball

As their injury list grows, the Angels’ deficit in the American League West standings continues to shrink. This may contradict long-standing baseball theory--i.e., the healthy team wins--but then again, when was the last time anything made sense in the American League West?

Monday night, the Angels lost Wally Joyner before the first pitch and Willie Fraser before the completion of the fourth inning, but still managed to beat the Boston Red Sox, 3-2, before 27,322 at Fenway Park. In the process, the Angels pulled to within two games of the front-running Minnesota Twins, the closest they have been to first place since May 16.

Who can figure? Already, the Angels are without regular shortstop Dick Schofield, who has a dislocated shoulder. And now, Joyner, their best hitter, may have cracked ribs, and Fraser, their second-winningest starting pitcher, has a severly bruised pitching hand.

Joyner injured his ribs Sunday during a first-base collision with Milwaukee’s Glenn Braggs. X-rays were taken in Boston Monday, but proved inconclusive, so a bone scan has been scheduled for today.

“You could suspect a hairline fracture, but we’re hoping the bone scan will rule that out,” Angel trainer Rick Smith said.

Fraser injured his right hand when it got in the way of a wicked line drive off the bat of Wade Boggs in the fourth inning. The ball was hit so hard that after it deflected off Fraser’s hand, it struck the side of Fraser’s leg, raising an ugly purple-and-yellow welt.

Fraser left Monday’s game after the incident and is listed as questionable for his next start.

“To get in our trainer’s room by 6 o’clock,” Angel Manager Gene Mauch said, “you got to make a reservation by 9 a.m.”

Yet the Angels keep winning. The victory over Boston was their third straight and their fourth in a row over the Red Sox. They are four games over .500 (49-45) for only the second time in the last two months.

This win came thanks to Ruppert Jones (two-run double), Devon White (tie-breaking RBI single in the eighth inning) and bullpen-by-committee. Fraser’s premature departure brought on three relief pitchers--Gary Lucas for two innings, Greg Minton for 1 and DeWayne Buice for the final two.

Lucas gave up two runs, thanks partially to an RBI triple by Boggs that should have been caught by either Jones or White. Minton allowed just one hit as he earned the win, improving his record to 3-0. And Buice struck out three Red Sox to pick up his 10th save of the season.

The Angel relief corps, working without injured ace Donnie Moore, has been doing this sort of thing for a while. Since May 28, the Angel bullpen is 8-1 with 15 saves.

“Remarkable,” Mauch said. “I don’t know what they’ve got going on among themselves. It’s almost like, ‘You better do something good out there or you can’t come back.’ ”

Relief became necessary Monday when Fraser, retiring 11 of the 12 batters he faced, couldn’t get out of the way of Boggs’ line drive.

“I didn’t see it,” Fraser said. “I threw it--and then it was there. I knew it was going to hit me. I couldn’t do anything. It hit right where my arm wound up (following his delivery).”

Fraser admitted he was scared. So did Mauch. The hand immediately swelled up and Fraser would take no more chances. He was headed for a round of X-rays, which proved negative. The injury was diagnosed as bruised tendons.

Fraser wore an elbow-long brace on his right arm as he talked with reporters after the game.

“The hand is black and blue already,” he said. “It hurt to open it up and I couldn’t open the fingers to throw my forkball. I’ll put some ice on it tonight and tomorrow and see how it feels.”

The ball also left a knot on the side of Fraser’s left leg. “It’s like they opened me up, put a rock in there and closed it back up,” Fraser said. “It really stung my leg.”

Mauch said he didn’t know if Fraser would be able to make his next start. “Luckily, we have an off-day Thursday,” Mauch said. “That can take care of it, if necessary.”

Joyner’s status will be determined by the result of the bone scan.

“If they find nothing, he might be able to play Wednesday, although I kind of figure Friday is more realistic,” Mauch said. “If it’s a cracked rib, it’ll probably be longer.”

Without Joyner, Mauch patched together a lineup that included George Hendrick at first base and Jones in center field, with White shifting back to right. Jones drove in the Angels’ first two runs with a fifth-inning double, but helped give one back in the sixth because of some defensive indecisiveness.

Still, Mauch figured he came out of the deal ahead, 2-1.

Lucas was trying to protect a 2-1 lead with Ed Romero on first base when Boggs drove the ball deep into the gap in right-center. The ball appeared catchable, but at the last moment, both Jones and White gave up the chase, the ball landing between them and bouncing to the fence.

Romero came around to score and Boggs wound up on third, where Minton came on and saw to it that he was stranded there.

“If I probably went at it all out, I could have caught it,” White said. “I took my eye off it and looked at Ruppert. It was a lack of communication.”

White made amends in the eighth by driving home Brian Downing from second base with a single off the glove of a diving Romero, Boston’s second baseman.

The Angels had regained the lead. And once again, Buice came in to preserve it. After 10 years in the minor leagues, Buice ranks among the AL leaders with 10 saves before the end of July.

“This is definitely worth the wait,” he said. “I always knew I could do it. And so did my parents. I convinced Mom a long time ago.

“But, now, I’m convincing somebody that matters.”

Today, count the Red Sox among the convinced.

Angel Notes

Blame it on the roommate: Were it not for an errant throw by road roommate Jack Howell, Wally Joyner might have averted injury during Sunday’s game in Milwaukee. Howell, filling in as emergency second baseman in the eighth inning, tried to turn a double play on Brewer Glenn Braggs but fired wildly past Joyner at first base. As Joyner reached for the throw, he was met head-on by Braggs, who crashed into the right side of Joyner’s rib cage. “Braggs rattled him pretty good,” Manager Gene Mauch said. “I didn’t see the play and I didn’t know until after the game that there had been contact. Forty-five minutes before we land in Boston, Wally comes up to me and says, ‘Skip, I’m really hurting.’ I asked him how Braggs hit him--with an arm, with an elbow? Wally said, ‘He just got me with a couple hundred pounds of something.’ ” Joyner had the rib cage examined by team physician Dr. Lewis Yocum, who suggested X-rays. According to Mauch, the X-rays showed that “one spot was suspicious enough to warrant a bone scan. Either way, he won’t be doing any roller skating or bowling for a while.” . . . Yocum also examined Dick Schofield’s separated shoulder and recommended that Schofield return home to undergo “more concentrated therapy,” as Mauch put it. Gary Tuthill, the former Rams trainer who now operates a sports medicine clinic in Orange, has been assigned to work with Schofield. “I understand Tuthill is very good,” Mauch said. “In football, you have to deal with a lot of dislocations of varying degrees. Dick will get some treatment there and he may rejoin us in Oakland (next week).” More from Mauch on Schofield’s injury: “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that it happened--and I can’t tell you how glad I am that it didn’t happen to his right shoulder.”

Jim Rice had a rough night in left field for the Red Sox. In the third inning, he let up on sinking but catchable line drive by Brian Downing, trapping the ball and losing his grip on it before hurrying a throw back to the infield, holding Downing to a single. In the eighth, with Devon White rounding second base after Howell singled to left, Rice threw his relay to second, behind White. Alertly, White kept going to third, without Boston making a play on him. By the time the ninth inning rolled around, the Fenway Park crowd had seen enough. After George Hendrick opened the ninth with a routine single to left, and Rice made the routine throw back to second, Rice received a loud and long Bronx cheer. . . . When you’re Wade Boggs, 11 straight hitless at-bats is a staggering slump. So when Boggs concluded the weekend on an 0-for-11 streak, he decided drastic measures were needed. Boggs shaved his beard before Monday’s game, leaving just a mustache, and proceeded to go 2 for 4 with a double and a triple. . . . In this decade, only three Angel relievers have saved more games in a season than the 10 saves DeWayne Buice has. Donnie Moore had 31 saves in 1985 and 21 in 1986, Luis Sanchez had 11 saves in 1983 and Don Aase had 11 in 1981.