Minton’s Dream Now a Nightmare : He Can Only Watch Angels Slide Toward Cellar, 2-1, in 10

Imagine, as Greg Minton must, what might have happened back in late May if he had thrown a few more strikes and invested in a good set of earplugs, enabling him to block out the boos that drove him out of Candlestick Park.

Minton might still be a San Francisco Giant, bound for glory and a playoff check in another two weeks or so.

Instead, he was handed his release on May 28--and his sentence on June 2. On that date, Minton signed up with the Angels--and signed away his season.

Goodby, first place.

Hello . . . last place?

The Angels dropped to within 2 1/2 games of the American League West cellar Sunday with a 2-1, 10-inning loss to the Texas Rangers at Arlington Stadium. It was the Angels’ second straight defeat in extra innings, their fourth straight loss overall and their 14th defeat in 18 September outings.

Minton (4-4) was the losing pitcher, although by no real fault of his own. All he did was surrender a grounder hit by Texas’ Scott Fletcher that went through the left side of the Angel infield. Then Minton handed the ball to DeWayne Buice. And winced.

Fletcher promptly stole second and took third on an infield out. Buice intentionally walked Pete O’Brien and unintentionally walked Tom O’Malley and Darrell Porter on eight straight pitches to force in the winning run.

The defeat dropped the Angels 10 games behind first-place Minnesota--if anybody’s still counting--and left them only 2 1/2 games ahead of seventh-place Chicago.

Minton can’t believe it.

“All I know is we’re 2 1/2 games out of last place,” Minton said. “I’ll be damned if this is a last-place team. I thought this was going to be my first playoff team. I thought I’d be getting my first ring.

“I’m embarrassed as hell to be this close to last place. And everybody else should be, too. We doing dumb things and we’re a veteran ballclub. We just shouldn’t be doing the things we do.”

Minton paused to catch his breath and seemed to be revving up for more. Just then, he looked at a reporter’s notebook.

“Don’t get me started,” he said. “I think I better go this way.”

With that, Minton retreated to the showers.

The Angels’ fate, of course, is in their own hands. Tonight, they play the first of six games with Chicago, opening a three-game series at Anaheim Stadium. Considering the recent turnabout of the White Sox (8-3 in their last 11 games) and how the Angels have fared at home (34-41 this season), they could be in last place by Wednesday night.

And if the Angels finish there, they will become the first major league team since the 1914-15 Philadelphia A’s to fall from first place to last in the span of a single season.

And so, how did they get here?

Games such as Sunday’s have helped.

They caught Charlie Hough, an old nemesis, at his sloppiest. Through the first seven innings, Hough broke American League and club records, respectively, by committing two balks and hitting three Angels with pitches.

The balks gave Hough nine for the season, surpassing Frank Tanana’s AL mark of eight, set with the Angels in 1978. And by hitting Wally Joyner twice and Brian Downing once, Hough logged his 14th hit batsman of the year, eclipsing Pete Broberg’s franchise record of 13, set in 1972.

Hough also allowed six hits and two walks during an eight-inning stint. Yet, he left tied, 1-1, thanks to the Angel offense, which stranded 11 runners in the first seven innings.

The Angels got particularly creative in the sixth, when Tony Armas hit a one-out grounder to third with Joyner on third base and Bill Buckner on first. Joyner figured Ranger third baseman Larry Parrish would attempt to turn a double play, but he was wrong. Joyner wandered off third base, and Parrish tagged him out.

Dick Schofield fouled out and the threat was over.

The teams staggered into the 10th, when Buice lost track of the plate for 12 straight pitches, while trying to miss on only four.

“And none of them were close,” Buice said. “I just didn’t have any control, plain and simple.

“Out of the last eight pitches, only one was even close to being a strike--and it wasn’t. You’re certainly not going to swing at it when I’ve missed with the last five in a row.”

Having relied on forkballs, Buice changed strategies by throwing a fastball to Porter on a 3-and-0 count.

“One last-ditch effort to get the ball over the plate,” Buice said. “I couldn’t do it.”

Porter walked, Fletcher walked home from third and the Angels walked off the field--which, in itself, was an impressive feat, coming from a team that is currently dead on its feet.

Angel Notes

Willie Fraser pitched seven innings, allowed Texas one run and five hits, and wound up with nothing more than an aching back to show for it. Fraser strained a muscle behind his right shoulder blade while delivering a pitch in the seventh inning and never came out to work the eighth. “We didn’t want to mess with his arm,” Angel Manager Gene Mauch said. Fraser called it “nothing serious” and said he expected to make his next start. Among the Angel starters, Fraser has provided the lone piece of good news during September. Fraser is 10-9 and pitched a complete game 7-1 victory in his previous start to lower his ERA to 3.62. That moved Fraser, a rookie, past Toronto’s Jim Clancy (3.71) and Cy Young contender Dave Stewart (3.66) into seventh place among American League leaders. “I know I haven’t been giving up many runs,” Fraser said. “Even when I had some trouble earlier, my ERA stayed in the 4.00s and now I’m getting it into the 3.00s. I’d like to have a few more wins, but there’s nothing anybody can do about it.” . . . Wally Joyner, on his sixth-inning lapse, which got him tagged out at third base on a grounder to third: “I thought it was a double play ball. It turned out that it wasn’t. I hesitated, but I hesitated too long to get back to third. I should’ve stayed at third the whole time and figure out what (third baseman Larry) Parrish was going to do.”