Mike Witt Sees It All Fall Apart : Although He Retires the First 14 Batters, White Sox Win, 8-5

Game 1 of the Cookie Rojas era was a catered affair Monday afternoon, an 8-5 loss to the Chicago White Sox that featured the full smorgasbord of Angel fears and concerns--pitching problems, defense in left field, the strategy of a rookie manager and even a botch by that steadiest of Angels, Wally Joyner.

For 4 innings, Rojas could have managed this team in a hammock. New leadoff hitter Mark McLemore opened the season with a double and gave Rojas an instant 1-0 lead by scoring on a sacrifice fly. Two innings later, Johnny Ray made it 2-0 with a line-drive home run to left. In the meantime, Angel starter Mike Witt was retiring each of the first 14 White Sox hitters he faced, allowing just two balls out of the infield.

A piece of cake, Cookie must have thought of this managing business.

And then, in an Angel tradition that precedes Rojas by a couple decades, it all unraveled in a matter of seconds before a Comiskey Park audience of 35,899.

Witt made what everyone in the Angel clubhouse swore was a perfect pitch to Carlton Fisk--jamming him inside, forcing Fisk to loft a fly ball to shallow left field. That is Johnny Ray territory, previously uncharted, and on his second chance as a major league outfielder, Ray ran and ran and finally dived--and couldn’t come up with the ball.

Fisk wound up on second base with a bloop double. Witt’s perfect game was history and imperfection took hold with a vengeance.

On Witt’s next pitch, Dan Pasqua drove home Fisk with a broken-bat single over the lip of the right side of the infield. Pasqua scored five pitches later, ahead of a mammoth two-run home run that Kenny Williams deposited into the left-field upper deck.

Ahead, 2-0, the Angels found themselves behind, 3-2. Two innings later, it was White Sox 8, Angels 4, courtesy a gate-opening error by Joyner.

By the end of a five-run seventh inning, Witt was gone and Rojas was on his way to 0-1.

“A tough way to start,” Rojas said. “It always is when you lose. Witt pitched a good game except for a couple of bloop hits and if that ball (Fisk’s) is caught, we’d probably still be ahead.”

Could Ray have caught it?

“I thought I had a shot,” Ray said. “I didn’t make the play, though. . . . I felt I got a good jump, but your first reaction on a swing like that is to hesitate. It looked like he was going hit it deep.

“My first reaction was not to charge the ball, especially with a power hitter up there.”

Rojas had Ray playing deep to begin with, almost at the edge of the warning track. Ray had a long way to run and when it comes to footspeed, Ray will never be mistaken for Gary Pettis.

“Fisk is a man who has power,” Rojas said. “You’ve got to play him back. I’d rather give him a bloop hit than a double or (more) extra bases, especially when you have the lead.

“Ray made a hell of an effort for that ball. A few more feet and he would have caught it. But, the wind held it there.”

Before that hit, it had been 14 up and 14 down for Chicago against Witt. Immediately after that hit, Pasqua singled and Williams homered.

Such breakdowns were a trademark of Witt’s early days as a big league pitcher--smooth sailing, then a patch of choppy water and then the whole ship runs aground.

Monday’s fifth inning provided an unpleasant flashback for the Angels, although Witt was not in the mood to reminisce.

“I’m no magician,” he said. “I don’t have a spell over anybody. A base hit is part of a baseball game.

” . . . If you throw the pitch you want to throw and it falls for a base hit, it’s a fact of life, a fact of the game. You just go from there.

“The ones that get to me are when I don’t make my pitch, and it turns out to be a double or a home run. That’s when I lose my concentration. When you throw the pitch you want and they hit it, there’s not much you can do except keep throwing the ball.”

Witt did manage to collect himself for a 1-2-3 sixth inning and opened the seventh with a quick out. But, pitching with a 4-3 lead, Witt yielded another bloop hit to Fisk and walked Pasqua, the next hitter.

For Witt, that would be his last hitter. Rojas walked out of the dugout to make his inaugural pitching change, summoning right-hander Stewart Cliburn to pitch to Williams.

Soon, Rojas was primed for his inaugural second-guess.

Williams drove Cliburn’s first pitch over the head of right fielder Chili Davis for a game-tying double. Then, a gaffe by Joyner--a bobbled ground ball hit to first by Donnie Hill--brought home the go-ahead run.

The next hitter, Lance Johnson, singled home another run--driving Cliburn out of the game--and DeWayne Buice came on to give up the fifth run of the inning on Ozzie Guillen’s RBI single.

Did Rojas act too soon, pulling Witt in the seventh inning of a four-hitter?

“He started to get the ball up so I went with Cliburn,” Rojas said. “Sometimes, I’m going to be right, sometimes I’m going to be wrong.”

Said Witt: “He thought I was getting tired. I don’t know. . . . If you get the ball up, I don’t know if that means you’re tired. I had games where I threw 140 pitches and I was getting the ball up.

“He thought I was getting tired and took me out. That’s what a manager’s supposed to do.”

Joyner, meanwhile, said there would have been no second-guessing had he had a second chance at Hill’s ground ball.

“If I catch that ball, we might still be playing,” Joyner said. “I was looking home and I never got my glove on the ball. I don’t think it’s hit leather yet. It hit the palm of my left hand and popped out.

“If I get the out there, they’ve got to get a hit to get the fifth run. Instead, they’ve got nine different ways to score the run after that.”

Joyner paused and then grinned.

“I’ll try and do better,” he said.

And so will the Angels. The Rojas regime continues Wednesday. There are still 161 second chances left.

Angel Notes

Dave Winfield to the Angels? When confronted again about the rumor before Monday’s game, Angel General Manager Mike Port quipped, “Is he going to play for us--or buy us?” And regarding the other half of that supposed deal, Johnny Ray, Port smiled and said, “If someone wants to pick that up and run with it, I would categorize Johnny Ray as an outstanding ballplayer. How about even-up?” However, Port did admit to conducting “personnel discussions” recently with the New York Yankees. Regarding Winfield? “I couldn’t comment on that,” Port said. Port was asked if he believed Yankee owner George Steinbrenner was serious in his threat to trade Winfield because of the content of Winfield’s new autobiography. “I only know what I read in the papers,” he said. “I’ve finished the book and, with all due respect to Mr. Steinbrenner, I think there have been other baseball books on the market that were worse or more vengeful or deeper cutting in impact. But I am not Mr. Steinbrenner. I don’t think Dave Winfield had that kind of intent when he wrote the book.” Winfield, who has trade-veto rights, has reportedly drawn up a list of seven clubs he would agree playing for--and the Angels were not one of them. Unless Winfield revises that list, any rumor involving the Angels is a moot point.

In last December’s draft of unprotected players, the Angels picked up pitcher Joe Johnson from Toronto and lost infielder Doug Jennings to Oakland. The cost for such an acquisition: $50,000. And if that player fails to make his new club’s big league roster, he must be offered back to his former team for $25,000. In the wake of this weekend’s final roster cuts, how did the Angels fare? They broke even--kind of. Jennings, who batted .338 with 30 home runs and 104 RBIs at double-A Midland in 1987, made the A’s roster, Johnson did not make the Angels’ roster, but Toronto declined to take the right-hander back. So, in accordance to the rules, the Angels were allowed to keep Johnson, whom they have sent to triple-A Edmonton. “I was a little apprehensive when we had to offer him back, because there are a lot of things I like about Joe Johnson,” Port said. “At some point in the year, I expect him to be back on the major league level. We went through the exercise of tendering him back to Toronto and thought they might take him back. But they are set with their starters and the people they have in Syracuse, so we were able to keep him. We’re happy.” With Jennings, however, the Angels apparently gambled and lost one of the best hitters in their organization. Port tried to downplay the loss of Jennings, saying, “With our situation (pinch-hitters) from the left side, with (Bill) Buckner and (Jim) Eppard, Jennings would have made us one deeper.” But Port did point out that Jennings has to remain on Oakland’s 24-man roster the entire season--”or they have to offer him first back to the Edmonton club.” Expect Port to keep a close eye on the A’s roster moves this summer.

Johnny Ray, after making his outfield debut in windy Comiskey Park: “You have to play deep here. Did you see how many balls went over outfielders’ heads? Against power hitters like Carlton (Fisk), (Ivan) Calderon and (Greg) Walker, you’ve got to play deep. With the wind, they’re always capable of hitting the ball out of the ballpark.” Did that wind also help Ray’s third-inning home run, his first as an Angel? “What are you trying to say?” Ray replied with a grin. “Hey, I need every bit of help I can get.” . . . Cookie Rojas has signed a one-year contract as Angels’ manager. Or, as Port termed the agreement, “year-by-year, the Alston plan.”