COUNTING TO 100 : Despite Recent Setbacks, La Russa Thinks Athletics Can Get That Many Victories

Tony La Russa admits to being superstitious, but the Oakland A’s manager won’t get specific about it because he believes talking about good-luck rituals can be a jinx.

He made one exception the other day, however, confessing that he listened to the same cassette tape on his way to and from the ballpark every day during the Athletics’ 14-game winning streak. The tape is a yet-to-be-released album by a friend, Dennis DeYoung, who rose to fame with the band, Styx.

Maybe there’s no connection, but La Russa’s band has been making some big noise with sticks, too.

These beasty boys from Oakland are on a pace to score about 950 runs this season. The last team to score more than 900 was the 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers, who won 105 games. The Minnesota Twins needed just 85 victories to win the title in the anemic American League West last season. If the A’s play .500 ball the rest of the way, they’ll win 88.

Right now, the A’s are a positively scary mixture of power hitting and power pitching, with just the right role players and almost perfect relief pitching.

Sounds good? It gets better.

Setting aside their streak-ending loss Tuesday night and a letdown defeat Wednesday, the A’s have been playing so well that nobody’s sure who’s responsible. Let’s take a stroll through the clubhouse and get some opinions on the single biggest factor in the A’s success so far:

--Third baseman Carney Lansford: “The starting pitching has just been awesome. They’ve kept us in the games until the second or sometimes third time through the order, until we can get a bead on them. That’s the single biggest thing.”

--Designated hitter Don Baylor: “The Eck (reliever Dennis Eckersley) really has been the only surprise. He’s no sleeper, but 12 saves in his first 12 opportunities . . . “

--Outfielder-designated hitter Dave Parker: “Don’t let anyone fool you. The success of this club is our offensive production. No question.”

--Pitcher Matt Young: “The emergence of Stan Javier as a legitimate No. 2 hitter has been the biggest key. He’s a line-drive hitter and he’s really getting his bat on the ball.”

--Outfielder Dave Henderson: “Our good defense. It was a major question coming out of the spring, but we’ve played good defense.”

--Pitcher Dave Stewart: “The best thing about this team is that we’re so deep. Tony is making sure everyone gets a chance to play, and that keeps guys sharp.”

There you have it, a clear consensus: The A’s do a whole bunch of things well. And the way Henderson sees it, things are only going to get better.

“Everybody’s not even clicking on all cylinders yet,” he said. “We’ve had a couple key injuries already, and a lot of guys aren’t at the top of their game yet.”

POLITICS OF POWER

La Russa showed up for batting practice wearing the wrong uniform shirt on opening day. That meant a $5 fine from the A’s kangaroo court, but he fought the ruling, arguing that he was concentrating on Seattle’s lineup while dressing.

If La Russa was driven to distraction by the Mariners’ batting order, look for some American League manager to walk onto the field wearing no shirt after contemplating the A’s hitters. La Russa has been known to start a lineup with Lansford, Jose Canseco, Parker and Mark McGwire in the 1, 2, 3 and 4 spots. Those four drove in 400 runs last season.

“I’m not downplaying the advantage of power because power can win some games,” La Russa said. “But to win a lot of games, you need great pitching and great defense, too. We hope to have a complete club because that’s the club that will win.”

Sandy Alderson, Oakland’s vice president in charge of baseball operations, made every effort to transform the A’s big swingers into big winners during the off-season. Alderson, a blue-jeans-and-loafers kind of guy, proved he could wheel and deal with anybody in a three-piece suit last winter.

The performance of rookie shortstop Walt Weiss late last season and the late-season surge of Eckersley--he had 16 saves after the A’s turned him into a relief pitcher--made Alfredo Griffin and Jay Howell expendable. Alderson traded them to the Dodgers for Bob Welch and left-hander Young in a 3-way deal involving the New York Mets.

He also traded for Parker, the veteran left-handed hitter who fits so snugly into the middle of the A’s young, predominantly right-handed lineup.

He got a similar type in free-agent Baylor, that dial-a-leader designate who is a must on every pennant contender’s shopping list. He traded for starter Storm Davis last August and signed free agents Henderson, catcher Ron Hassey and second baseman Glenn Hubbard in the off-season.

“The changes we made in the off-season were in areas where we were lacking,” said Eckersley, who retired 46 of the 52 batters he faced before blowing his first save opportunity of the year in Wednesday’s 8-4 loss to Detroit. “Every guy on this team knows that the organization is trying to win now . Not next year or sometime down the road, but now .”

La Russa certainly isn’t complaining about the hand he was dealt.

“This is Sandy Alderson’s club,” he said. “He put together a well-balanced team. And I’m doing a great job of managing. I just make out the lineup card and get the hell out of the way.”

POWER HITTING

Is this team loose?

Canseco and Parker decided to have a home run contest during batting practice the other day. Nothing new, right? But this time, Canseco was hitting left-handed and Parker right-handed.

Canseco hit the first pitch into the right-field seats.

Canseco took one 4-swing turn the other day and provided four souvenirs for the kids in the left-field bleachers.

Parker stepped in next and hit three over the fence in right, providing commentary for each.

“Bye.”

“Nice knowin’ ya.”

“Ciao, baby.”

La Russa hopes they get it out of their systems in batting practice.

“As long as our hitters take advantage of the fact that you can’t really concentrate on one guy, and don’t get caught up in trying to hit one farther than the last guy, we’ll be all right,” he said.

But Canseco will look you straight in the eye and tell you that he’s got a 50-homer, 140-runs-batted-in season in him. You believe him, too.

And if money is any kind of incentive, then look out in 1988. He’s eligible for arbitration after this season.

He’s off to a good start. He’s tied for the league lead in homers with 9 and has 32 RBIs. La Russa says Canseco could easily steal 40 bases this year, too, but he probably won’t because, “he only steals when it will help the team.”

He also has been concentrating on his defense and shows signs of becoming one of the better right fielders.

Canseco and McGwire each have six game-winning RBIs already this season. McGwire will have trouble matching his rookie record of 49 homers--not to mention the 118 RBIs--but La Russa thinks his big first baseman will see even more good pitches this year.

McGwire’s 8 homers and 27 RBIs thus far seem to back up his theory.

La Russa used 16 designated hitters last year, the most celebrated of whom was Reggie Jackson, but they hit only .203.

Baylor, who started last season with the defending World Series champion Boston Red Sox, ended it with the World Series champion Twins. He has 16 years of service in the big leagues and says he has at least one more good one to give. He started slowly this season, but has hit safely in six of his last eight games.

Parker, who spent his first 14 years in the National League, was moved from his traditional spot in right field to left by the A’s. He said he’s just beginning to feel comfortable out there, but he missed five games after running into a wall chasing a fly ball.

Parker was pretty upset when Cincinnati agreed to trade him in December and says now that he intends to prove to the Reds--and the world, for that matter--that he’s a “bona fide star.”

So far, so good. He has hit safely in 20 of the 28 games in which he has played and his average with runners on base is .314.

Lansford, probably the best defensive third baseman in the league, keeps getting better. In his 10th season, he tied his career high in homers with 19, and led the team in batting average, .289.

No. 11 could be even better, though. He leads the majors with 48 hits, has hit in 10 of 11 games and has a .348 batting average.

Nice leadoff hitter.

Meanwhile, the A’s have been putting a lot of distance between themselves and the rest of the division. They lead second-place Chicago by 8 games. They have won 18 of their last 21. And their first team hasn’t been on the field all at once very often.

Parker missed a week. Weiss has been out for a week with a sprained ankle. And catcher Terry Steinbach, whose fine rookie year--.284 average, 16 homers and 56 RBIs--was overshadowed by McGwire’s, is on the disabled list with multiple fractures around his left eye, suffered in a pregame accident last week.

But the A’s have hardly missed a beat. Javier, a 22-year-old who won the batting title in the Dominican Republic two years in a row, has been hitting better than .300 all season. Henderson’s 4 homers and 13 RBIs have been a pleasant surprise. Mike Gallego has done the job defensively in Weiss’ absence. And Hassey has brought his average to just under .300 after a slow start.

So far, everybody in green and gold seems to be having fun.

Canseco and McGwire are giving each other credit for a new celebration ritual, the mash. It’s kind of a high-five done with forearms instead of hands.

With all the reasons to celebrate these days, some Oakland players are getting sore forearms.

“I don’t know who started it,” Henderson said, scowling, “but the next guy who does it to me too hard is getting knocked out.”

POWER PITCHING

La Russa stepped up to the podium at a preseason press conference to introduce the new players and said:

“I read where the guy in New York (Don Mattingly) said they’re going to win it all. I don’t see why I can’t say we’re going to win it all, but I’ve been told to low-key it, so . . . “

He leaned down and whispered into the microphone.

” . . . we’re going to win it all.”

La Russa, the man with the answering machine that says hello by announcing that Oakland will win 100 games in 1988, says he was kidding about winning the World Series and that 100 wins is a goal, not a prediction.

It was easy to get carried away, though, looking at the talent Oakland added to an already solid club. And the acquisition of Bob Welch made him quiver in anticipation.

Welch was 15-9 with a 3.22 earned-run average for the Dodgers last year. In the nine games he lost, the Dodgers averaged 1.7 runs. La Russa figures he would have won 20 easily for the A’s. Welch is 5-2 already this season.

“He’s just now, maybe the last two starts, starting to throw really well,” La Russa said. “But even when he’s not throwing well, he’s no rookie-league pitcher. He’ll go out there and battle and give you a chance to win every night.”

Stewart has also done than that, and more. He won 20 games last year and is 8-0 with a 2.42 ERA this time around. He, too, says that only recently has he hit stride.

“The team’s picked me up so far,” he said. “I didn’t pitch well until the last two starts. It’s encouraging to be undefeated when you’re not pitching that well. I’ll take it.”

So will La Russa. His two best pitchers say they’re pitching lousy and they’ve combined for a 13-2 record. What happens when they find a groove?

The rest of the starting rotation--Davis, Curt Young and Steve Ontiveros--are a combined 6-3 and only Ontiveros has an ERA over 4.00.

If the starters have been good enough, the relief has been about as good as it gets. The bullpen has a major league-leading 18 saves and is 5-3.

Eckersley hadn’t allowed a run before Wednesday. Rick Honeycutt, Gene Nelson and Greg Cadaret have been effective as well. The A’s are 17-1 in games they have led in the seventh inning.

“Eckersley’s so good at getting ahead of the hitters and putting them on the defensive,” Stewart said. “The Eck just keeps throwing strikes.”

POSITIVE-THINKING POWER

The A’s have revived the club’s original logo, designed in the early 1900s for the Philadelphia Athletics. You know, the one with the elephant balanced on top of a huge baseball like a scene out of Dumbo.

Maybe it’s supposed to signify the titanic dimensions of their home run potential. Or maybe it’s symbolic of their desire to end up atop the baseball world next fall.

In any case, the A’s are out of the blocks in a hurry, but old pro Baylor is preaching the long-way-to-go sermon in the clubhouse.

“A baseball season is not a sprint, it’s a marathon,” he says. “Baseball is all about staying power and endurance.”

Oakland may fall short of its lofty goals this season, but one thing seems certain: The A’s hitters will 86 a lot of pitchers in ’88.