Kingdome Is Just Like Home to McCaskill

The Kingdome, that Washington monument to everything weird in the game of baseball in the late 1980s, means many things to many people.

Steve Trout, the Seattle Mariner who reinvents the science of pitching with every start he makes, couldn’t get out of the building fast enough Sunday.

Chili Davis, the new Angel right fielder, wanted to bring the place home with him after driving in three runs against Trout.

“I hate leaving here without a jack, if you know what I mean,” Davis said.

And Kirk McCaskill, the winning pitcher in the Angels’ 7-4 victory over the Mariners, regards the Kingdome as kind of a home away from home, complete with an ambiance that recalls his college days.

“It reminds me of a hockey rink,” says McCaskill, who used to spend his time in one while he was the captain of the University of Vermont hockey team a few years back.

“Being indoors, being enclosed like this, it has the same kind of smell. And now they’ve put glass (Plexiglas) on top of the outfield fences. You hit a ball off the fence here, and it sounds like pucks getting slapped against the boards.”

Kind of gives you a warm feeling all over.

Actually, McCaskill does hold a true affinity for this strange, cement structure. He pitched his last shutout in the Kingdome, a 4-0 four-hitter on April 15, 1987--12 days before he underwent the elbow operation that basically wiped out the rest of his season.

“The Big S,” McCaskill said with a grin. “I had the big shutout here . . . and then, the big surgery.”

McCaskill has won only twice since. And he entered Sunday’s game having made only 1 start in 14 days--with 9 days off since that one start.

But back in this friendly atmosphere, with an intimate gathering of 14,641 looking on, McCaskill earned his first victory since Aug. 23, 1987 by pitching seven innings and allowing three runs on seven hits.

McCaskill left the game with a 5-3 lead and turned it over to the young bullpen tandem of Frank DiMichele and Ray Krawczyk, with Krawczyk working the final 1 innings to record his first major league save.

And--brace yourself--by beating the Mariners, McCaskill pitched the Angels into a first-place tie in the American League West.

Yes, it was truly a day to remember.

And what is McCaskill’s secret of success in the Kingdome, normally a launching pad for hitters and a bane for pitchers?

“I like pitching here because it makes you concentrate more,” he said.

Well, that’s one version, anyway. Then, there were the four comical innings turned in by Trout, who ought to take his act on the road with the famous Chicken. Just the challenge of watching Trout pitch makes you concentrate more.

Sunday, Trout faced 23 batters. He surrendered seven hits, three walks and five runs. He also hit three batters--two in one inning--and committed three balks--two in one inning--and uncorked two wild pitches.

Seattle pitching coach Billy Connors called it “a horror movie. I’m thinking of seeing ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ tonight to get a game plan for his next start. He didn’t have a chance. He had no confidence at all. You figure it out.”

The Mariners were trying to do that following Trout’s first start. In that one, against Oakland, on April 6, Trout lasted two-thirds of an inning. After retiring the first two batters, he then walked five, threw two wild pitches and threw another ball away for an error.

Afterward, Connors told Seattle writers, “He doesn’t know what happened five minutes ago, let alone five innings ago.”

So, Trout spaced out again against the Angels. And then he cleared out, leaving the Kingdome before the game ended.

While he was on the mound, Trout helped the Angels to five runs. A brief recap:

--First inning: After Mark McLemore reached base on an error and Brian Downing walked, Trout threw a wild pitch. Davis got McLemore home on a sacrifice fly, and Trout hit Wally Joyner with a pitch. Then Tony Armas singled home Downing.

--Fourth inning: Trout hit Downing with a pitch to load the bases. Davis followed by hitting a pitch into left field for a single, bringing in two more runs.

--Fifth inning: Trout faced two final hitters, Devon White and Jack Howell, and surrendered singles to both. White scored when Seattle reliever Jerry Reed allowed a sacrifice fly to Butch Wynegar.

Meanwhile, McCaskill was holding the Mariners to one run through five innings. He gave up a home run to Ken Phelps in the sixth inning and allowed Harold Reynolds to single home another run in the seventh before Angel Manager Cookie Rojas summoned the bullpen.

“He was starting to get his pitches high,” Rojas said. “He was getting the ball up and they were starting to hit him pretty good. So we decided to go with DiMichele, since (the Mariners) had left-handers in a row coming up.”

Or at least until Seattle Manager Dick Williams began sending up pinch-hitters. The first, Mickey Brantley, homered off DiMichele to pull the Mariners to 5-4. Two outs later, Rojas brought in Krawczyk, who allowed two quick singles but no more runs.

Krawczyk then finished out the ninth inning, with the help of a line-drive double play off the bat of Reynolds and into the glove of Joyner at first base.

By the time Krawczyk got Henry Cotto to pop out for the final out, he was starting to think that this Kingdome was a pretty good place, too.

Look at this way: Krawczyk hasn’t saved a game in any other big league stadium.

“This is a great feeling,” Krawczyk said. “I’ve waited a long time for this. It’s been eight years.”

Yes, anything can happen here. The Angels, now Oakland-bound, can hardly wait for August, their next go-round in the Great Northwest’s great indoors.

Angel Notes

The strange ways of Steve Trout were not lost on the Angels. Said Angel Manager Cookie Rojas: “That’s not the same man I saw before. I don’t know what’s happened. He’s lost his control. The new balk rule seems to be hurting him a lot.” Added Chili Davis, a former National League rival of Trout’s: “He used to be a power-type pitcher. Today, it looked like he was trying to push the ball. I remember in the National League, he’d basically get by on one pitch. You’d think, ‘How can this guy get me out with just a fastball?’ I don’t know if his arm is hurt or what, but he was better in the National League.” . . . Brian Downing was both walked and hit by a pitch by Trout in three at-bats. “That’s been my offense--I walk and I get hit,” said Downing, who took a .125 batting average into the game. “Hell, hit me again, do me a favor. Hit me five times if you want to.” . . . Davis, on playing in the Kingdome: “Maybe I should’ve signed with Seattle instead of the Giants in ’77. Things would have been a whole lot different.” The Kingdome features slightly better weather than Candlestick Park. “There are no rainouts here,” Davis noted.

Injuries, Real and Near: Jim Presley, who delivered the game-winning hit for Seattle Saturday night, was scratched from the starting lineup Sunday with a sore back. Then, in the sixth inning, Mark McLemore had a scare when, leading off third base, he took a foul line drive off his left knee cap. McLemore went down in a heap, but remained in the game--coming back in the eighth inning to single and steal second base. “I thought it was worse that it was,” McLemore said. “It hit me in the knee, but I had a knee pad on.” . . . McLemore tied a club record by stealing three bases in the game. He reached base five times in five at-bats, scoring two runs. He also lost a bet to Dick Schofield, which is why he spent the first inning wearing his red stirrup stockings in the same 1920s fashion currently sported by Schofield. “I bet him I’d get a hit (Saturday) night and I went oh-for,” McLemore said. “The bet was that I’d wear my socks like that until I got a hit.” McLemore reached base on an error in the first inning, but restored his stirrups to their normal length in the second. “I thought it should have been a hit, so I changed them then,” he said.