Angels Score 5 in 9th to Beat Indians, 8-4

Baseball etiquette, always a touchy subject, was broken at least twice during the ninth inning here Tuesday night, an ugly predicament that finally pushed the Angels’ Chili Davis beyond the breaking point.

Davis batted twice in the ninth inning of the Angels’ 8-4 victory over the Cleveland Indians before 6,912 at Cleveland Stadium. He began the inning with a double that ignited a 5-run Angel rally and ended it with a strikeout that left him so furious, he snapped his bat in two over his knee like a scrap of firewood.

Was Davis miffed that his out left Johnny Ray standing on the on-deck circle at 0 for 4, depriving him one last chance to extend a hitting streak that ended at 16 games?

Wasn’t one hit per inning enough?

Or maybe striking out against a Cleveland relief pitcher is an offense never to be taken lightly.

None of the above, Davis will tell you. The crime, in his mind, was committed just before his at-bat when the Indians’ Chris Codiroli hit Wally Joyner in the leg with a pitch--one pitch after Bill Buckner had stolen second with a 4-run lead.

“First place, my rear, I think first place has gone to their heads,” Davis said of the Indians, who actually dropped into second place in the American League East after the loss.

“Wally didn’t do anything. I’m getting tired of seeing him get hit. He’s my teammate. You hurt him and you’re taking money out of my pocket.

“That’s what ticked me off so much. I wanted to get a hit there so bad.”

Doug Jones was the one who struck out Davis, but Davis was seething about the previous Cleveland pitcher, Codiroli, and the pitch he bounced off Joyner’s left calf. Joyner was able to jog to first base but had to leave the game when the leg began to cramp up on him.

“I’m not going to forget that,” Davis said. “What’s Joyner supposed to do? He didn’t steal the base. Don’t drill him. Drill me. I’ll go out there and the same temper you saw at home plate you’ll see at the mound.”

One of the many unwritten, unofficial credos that govern baseball conduct holds that no team with a substantial lead should steal a base in the late innings.

The Indians felt the Angels violated that principle with Buckner’s stolen base at 8-4.

“I didn’t like it,” Cleveland Manager Doc Edwards said. “Evidently, the Angels didn’t think four runs was enough. But if Joyner’s got a bone to pick, he should pick it with Buckner, not Codiroli.”

Another unwritten baseball rule: Don’t throw intentionally at a team’s clean-up hitter, lest you’re prepared to accept some pay-back in future meetings.

“It was intentional,” Joyner said, wearing an ice bag strapped to his left leg. “I saw two pitches (from Codiroli), and he tried to hit me the first time. I was surprised Andy (Indian catcher Allanson) caught the ball. The second pitch, he threw behind me.”

Said Angel Manager Cookie Rojas: “There’s no doubt in my mind it was intentional. Definitely. In my opinion, when Buckner stole second, they got ticked off. Codiroli has got better control than that.”

When apprised of the Angels’ accusations, Edwards merely shrugged.

“I thought he was wild,” Edwards said of Codiroli. “That’s why I went with Jones. If I thought he had that good of control, I’d have stayed with him.”

Codiroli, who showered and left the locker room before reporters could talk with him, received a warning from home plate umpire Vic Voltaggio after his pitch to Joyner.

This was the fourth time Joyner has been hit this season. “And three of them have been intentional,” Davis said.

The latest, Davis maintained, was uncalled for, mainly because he felt Buckner’s stolen base wasn’t uncalled for.

“If it’s a blowout, if it’s 7-1, you don’t want to steal a base there,” Davis said. “But at 8-4, it’s still a ballgame. A grand slam can still tie us. We’ve still got to go to work and get some runs.”

The Angels entered the ninth inning trailing, 4-3, but Davis’ double and George Hendrick’s pinch-single forged a 4-4 tie. Two more runs were added on a single by Butch Wynegar and a run-scoring groundout by Dick Schofield before Buckner broke the game open with a 2-run single off Codiroli.

That hit, Joyner claimed, bothered the Indians more than the ensuing stolen base.

“He threw at me before Bill stole the base,” Joyner said. “I think it was because of Bill’s hit. I wasn’t surprised when I saw it coming. It’s part of the game.”

Angel Notes

Johnny Ray’s hitting streak ended at 16 when he grounded to first base in the ninth inning, leaving him at 0 for 4. But Ray’s out was a valuable one, advancing Chili Davis to third base and moving the eventual tying run 90 feet closer to home plate. “That’s a real pro,” Angel Manager Cookie Rojas said. “The guy had a hitting streak going, and he hits behind the runner and moves him over. He put aside the personal thing and did the job for his team. That wins games for you.” . . . Ray, of course, never seemed all that interested in his hitting streak in the first place. “I ain’t worried about no streak,” he said. “We won the ballgame, didn’t we? Streaks are going to come and they’re going to go. If it happens, it happens. You can’t be thinking about that. The main thing was to get the runner over to third base.” . . . Kirk McCaskill started for the Angels but lasted just 4 innings, yielding all 4 Cleveland runs on 9 hits.