McCaskill Hits Wild Streak and Angels Hit Bottom, 2-1

Optimism has run rampant throughout the Angel clubhouse this April, for reasons yet to be made apparent.

Within the past week, both Manager Cookie Rojas and General Manager Mike Port have gone on the record, staking their reputations on their belief that the 1988 Angels are a first-place baseball team. And before Thursday night’s game, Wally Joyner told reporters that the Angels a “a great team--I think we’re playing real good and we’ve got bad luck.”

But then, the Angels went out and they lost Thursday night’s game, 2-1, to Frank Tanana and the Detroit Tigers, leaving them with an 8-13 record--which is the worst in the American League West.

Today, the Angels can only be considered a first-place team by looking at the standings upside down.

Sole possession of last place has been obtained with eight losses in the Angels’ last 10 games, including a 1-5 run in their last six. And if the most recent defeat wasn’t the most galling of the young season, it certainly ranked among the weirdest.

On paper, Kirk McCaskill pitched his best outing in more than a year, limiting the Tigers to four singles and one earned run through eight-plus innings. That’s the longest, and most effective, start by McCaskill since April 15, 1987, when he shut out Seattle on four hits.

But McCaskill lost it when:

--He tried to pick off Darrell Evans, a 40-year-old plodder with a total 10 stolen bases since 1984, and threw the ball away, enabling Evans to advance to second base.

--He tried to strand Evans at third with two out in the sixth inning, but wild-pitched him home to break a 1-1 time.

--Rojas flouted baseball convention and played for a tie on the road in the ninth inning--only to wind up with nothing.

More about that:

Tanana, on his way to his fifth win in five starts, had held the Angels to five hits through eight innings. In order to get the left-hander out of the game in the top of the ninth, Rojas sent up Gus Polidor, a right-handed hitter, to bat for the left handed-hitting Jack Howell, attempting to force the hand of Detroit Manager Sparky Anderson. And it did.

Anderson replaced Tanana with right-handed reliever Mike Henneman--and Rojas immediately countered by recalling Polidor and sending Devon White, a switch-hitter, to the plate.

White responded with a single to right and the Angels had their leadoff man on base. Due up next were Bob Boone and Dick Schofield, the No. 8 and 9 hitters in the Angel lineup, but Rojas still had left-handed pinch-hitter Bill Buckner on the bench.

Buckner, however, remained there and Rojas had Boone bat himself and sacrifice (he did) and let Schofield bat, too. The result was a weak foul out to Evans at first base.

That left White standing at second base, hoping for a base hit by Mark McLemore that never came. Henneman got McLemore to bounce out to second base and the Angels had touched down in seventh place.

Afterward, Rojas was asked about his strategy.

He said he kept Boone in the game to bunt and play the inning close to the vest because circumstances, in his mind, dictated it.

“A game like this, you play to win on the road?” Rojas asked rhetorically. “When you can’t score anything off Tanana? You’ve got to tie it before you can win it.”

But Tanana was out of the game by the time Boone came to bat.

Rojas: “They had their best reliever out there.”

So why not bat Buckner for Schofield?

Rojas: “What do I do then for a shortstop? Do I bring in Johnny Ray from left to play second base and move McLemore from second to shortstop? I don’t want to do that except when it’s extremely necessary.”

Rojas said he felt the way to play the inning was to have Boone bunt White to second--”He’s our best bunter and he did his job”--and then hope for a single by either Schofield or McLemore.

“If we had gotten a base hit there, everything would have been wonderful,” Rojas said. “We needed a hit to tie and we didn’t get it. It’s as simple as that.”

Of course, had it not been for McCaskill’s wildness in the sixth inning--wild pickoff throw followed by wild pitch--one run in the top of the ninth might have won it for the Angels.

McCaskill opened the sixth inning by walking Evans and then, at the suggestion of Boone, tried to pick him off first.

Evans is not much of a threat to steal, but McCaskill threw over the first baseman Wally Joyner anyway. The ball struck Evans’ helmet and bounced away for an error, enabling Evans to advance to second.

“I wasn’t worried about a steal,” McCaskill explained. “We were trying to get an out away from the plate. Bob noticed Evans was taking a big lead and told me, ‘Make him stop.’ Because Evans is not the swiftest player, I thought it was a shot worth taking.”

Joyner said “We could’ve had him, but Kirk hesitated a bit.” McCaskill admitted, “It was probably my fault. I think we tried it one pitch too late . . . I didn’t want to throw the ball where I did. I wanted it at Wally’s chest, but it ended up down near the bag.”

From second base, Evans took third when Joyner made a diving stop of a sharp infield grounder by Matt Nokes. And from third, Evans scored on McCaskill’s wild pitch with Dave Bergman batting.

“A bad pitch,” McCaskill said. “I wanted to to go low and away with it, but the ball kind of sailed inside.”

A bad pickoff throw. A wild pitch. Sometimes it takes only a little to lose a baseball game.

And it’s the little things that have gotten the Angels where they are today.

Angel Notes

Darrell Evans wasn’t sure the Angels were trying to set him up, but said he was warned about Kirk McCaskill’s pickoff attempt--by Angel Manager Cookie Rojas. “Rojas yelled out, ‘Pickoff play” from the bench, which doesn’t usually mean anything,” Evans said. “It’s a decoy. I usually depend on Dick Tracewski (Tiger first-base coach) and he told me he thought a play was coming. They were playing behind me. If I see Wally (Joyner) move, I go back--and he did that. If Dick doesn’t tell me anything, I keep walking. When they play behind me, you try to get more of a walking lead.” Evans admitted that the idea of stealing second base crossed his mind. “Another foot and I’d have thought of going,” he said. “Another six inches and they probably would’ve got me.” . . . McCaskill felt his worst crime with Evans was not the bad pickoff throw. “That wasn’t the problem,” he said. “The problem was that I walked him to lead off the inning.” McCaskill also walked five other Tigers, which caused him to downgrade his start to “not that good of an outing.” Said McCaskill: “I pitched hard, but I don’t think I pitched very well. How many guys did I walk? I’m not totally discouraged but anytime you walk six in a game, it’s not good. And, it cost me.”

Devon White was scratched from the starting lineup because of a sore right knee but appeared as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning. The knee is the reason why Rojas decided to advance White from first to second with a sacrifice bunt by Bob Boone--instead of having White attempt a steal. “With his bad knee, I didn’t want to take any chances,” Rojas said. “I didn’t want him to slide into the base, in this cold, and risk him getting banged up.” White said he could have tried to steal “only if I had a really big jump. But in the back of my mind, I didn’t want to slide on the back of my right leg.” . . . This isn’t the first time Frank Tanana has started a season 5-0. He did it with the Angels in 1978, en route to an 18-12 season.