Seattle’s Phelps Continues His Explosive Ways

Good morning, Mr. Phelps. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to wreak havoc with the Angel pitching staff, rendering it ineffective and disillusioned.

So far, this mission has been anything but impossible for Seattle’s Mr. (Ken) Phelps. In fact, the Mariners’ designated hitter seems to have accepted the task with relish and is reveling in carrying out his orders.

If the message didn’t self-destruct, the Angel pitchers have when facing Phelps. It took Peter Graves an entire hour to outwit an evil dictator, but Phelps has been disposing of Angel pitchers with just a couple quick swings of the bat.

The Mariners are 3-3 against the Angels, but if Phelps had been up to bat a few more times, they might be 6-0. He has 10 hits--including 3 home runs and 2 doubles--in just 22 at-bats against the Angels for a .455 batting average.

Saturday night at Anaheim Stadium he went right to work, belting a prodigious three-run homer into the second deck in right-center in the first inning off Dan Petry. He singled again in the fourth off Petry and then singled in the seventh against reliever DeWayne Buice before retiring for the evening, his mission accomplished.

Phelps slipped quietly into the Mariners’ dugout when Brick Smith came in to run for him in the seventh. And the Angels pitchers were left wondering what hit them while Phelps and friends were quietly savoring their 11-4 victory.

“I don’t know if I can hit a ball any farther than that one in the first,” said Phelps, who has an excellent career home-run ratio of one in every 13.65 at-bats, the best of any active major leaguer. “I got a pretty good piece of that one.”

Phelps hasn’t saved all his havoc wreaking for the Angels, though. He has 15 hits in his last 30 at-bats, is in the middle of a career-high nine-game hitting streak and has reached base in 13 of the Mariners’ 14 games.

His batting average is a cool .410, he has 4 homers and 10 RBIs, but he doesn’t play every day. Phelps is still being platooned and doesn’t face left-handed pitchers.

Is there a point when Manager Dick Williams will decide he’s too hot to sit, even against lefties?

“He’s going pretty good,” Williams admitted, “and, yeah, I guess if he stays this hot, he might see some lefties, but we’ll stick with the plan as is right now.”

Phelps is not making any “play-me-every-day-or-trade-me” demands. Heck, he isn’t even complaining.

“I don’t need to play every day,” he said. “I leave that up to the manager. There’s only a handful of guys who play all 162 games a year and there’s more and more specialization in the game these days. You have left-handed lineups and right-handed lineups. I’ll just go in there when they tell me to and do the best I can.”

He got a rare start in the field Saturday night, replacing the ailing Alvin Davis at first base. It might have been a costly foray into the world of defense. He made a nice-if-a-bit-awkward back-handed stop of a Wally Joyner grounder in the third inning, but lost his footing and twisted his ankle.

“I just slipped in the sand behind first and rolled over my ankle,” Phelps said, as he limped toward the postgame buffet. “I think it’s going to be pretty sore tomorrow.”

The Mariners are certainly hoping it doesn’t keep him out of the lineup too long. With left-hander Chuck Finley starting for the Angels, Phelps figured to get one day off, anyway. But they don’t want to be without his bat for long.

“This is as hot as I’ve ever been in the majors,” said Phelps, a five-year veteran and the Mariners’ all-time home run leader with 95. “I’m just in one of those grooves and I’d like to let it flow for as long as possible.”

The Angels will be glad to bid the Mariners--and, most of all, Mr. Phelps--farewell today. The teams don’t meet again until August. By that time, they hope Phelps will no longer be a man with a mission.