Angels Have Arrived in Baltimore, Wondering If They Can Match Up

Along with the rest of America, the Angels once laughed at the Baltimore Orioles. It used to be the pastime within the national pastime, watching the scoreboard from the Angel dugout and chortling over the Orioles’ latest, record-chasing defeat.

“Boy, I bet they can’t wait for us to get to Baltimore,” quipped Wally Joyner in mid-April, alluding, tongue in cheek, to the Angels’ woeful ways against the Orioles in bygone days. “They’re probably saying, ‘The Angels are coming to town in a few weeks. We’ll get one then.’ ”

It was funny, then.

A month has passed and the Angels have arrived in Baltimore. But they’re not laughing now. Poking fun at others is not proper form when you’re suddenly sharing the same boat.

Here, and only here, can the Angels find an American League team with a worse record than their own. At 5-31, the Orioles may be off to the worst start in major league history, but where does that leave the 14-23 Angels?

Probably in the same predicament as Baltimore: Out of the race by mid-May and waiting for another April.

Already, the Angels trail the American League West-leading Oakland Athletics by 13 games. That’s the biggest deficit in the standings the Angels have had since 1983, when they finished 29 games off the pace. And, excluding the Orioles, it’s the biggest deficit currently confronting any team in either league.

And this from a club Angel General Manager Mike Port and Manager Cookie Rojas labeled just three weeks ago “a first-place caliber team.”

The Angels’ 4-10 record in May has proven to be quite sobering. Reality has set in--repeat after me: This is not a good team --and all the happy spring illusions and best-case scenarios have been shattered, as if by a swift kick.

“There are a number of things you may choose to describe as miscalculations, “ Port says. “There are some things about this team that are surprising to me, to say the least.”

And those miscalculations have led Port to change his thinking about the young nucleus of the Angels. Realizing that changes need to be made, Port has accompanied the team on this trip to facilitate his ongoing trade discussions.

Maybe the core of this club needs to be re-assembled. Maybe Port’s “best young infield in baseball” must be broken up, with potential long-term gains sacrificed for salvaging the present.

“Given our present plans, do we have any untouchables? No,” Port said. “If we do the right things, we can make the club better . . . It’s time to get things done.”

So, the name of Dick Schofield, the prized 25-year-old shortstop, is bandied about in trade rumors. Other names, bigger names, are mentioned, too. But can one trade, or two, really be the answer?

The Angels have problems right through their roster, in every facet of the game. They started the season knowing they didn’t have enough pitching. Now, they’ve discovered they don’t have enough hitting or defense, either.

And, with the exception of relief pitcher Bryan Harvey, no help is coming from the farm system, which has been depleted with the recent promotions of Devon White, Mark McLemore, Jack Howell and Willie Fraser.

If you were Mike Port, these are the headaches you’d have awakened to this morning:

PITCHING

The staff earned-run average is 4.61. No starting pitcher has an ERA below 4.20. Already, 32 home runs have been allowed, almost 1 a game. And the bullpen has combined for six saves, fewer than half of those already accrued by Oakland’s Dennis Eckersley.

In times of trouble, a hurting team turns its eyes to its proven pitchers. In the Angels’ case, that would mean Mike Witt, Donnie Moore and DeWayne Buice.

But some time around Game 5 of the 1986 AL playoffs, Witt stopped serving as the Angels’ stopper. During a similar slide last May, when the Angels skidded through nine straight losses, Witt failed to intercede when the club needed him the most. And, it’s happening again, with Witt taking a 1-4 record and a 4.77 ERA into tonight’s series opener against the Orioles.

Witt has managed to win just 2 of his last 18 starts, dating to August, 1987.

Moore, the man who saved 52 games for the Angels in 1985-86, has saved just 6 since. After suffering through an assortment of rib and shoulder ailments, Moore is back on the disabled list with a bad knee. His 6.97 ERA remains the highest on the team.

And Buice, the pleasant surprise of ‘87, who assumed the bullpen load from Moore and saved a club-high 17 games, is no longer a surprise to opposing hitters.

With an average fastball on his best days, Buice chose not to play winter ball in the off-season and started the regular season still trying to work himself into shape. Consequently, he has tried to get by with his forkball, which has become the pitch batters are sitting on. And hitting, too. Buice is currently 0-2 with a 5.31 ERA and 3 saves.

With the exception of Fraser, no Angel pitcher has won more than two games. And Fraser has simply been the benefactor of good luck and good support. He has a 4-2 record, but has given up a team-leading nine home runs and has a 5.63 ERA.

HITTING

The three additions to the starting lineup have been the only ones hitting with any degree of consistency this season. New left fielder Johnny Ray is hitting .338 and has 24 RBIs, new right fielder Chili Davis is at .264 and 21 RBIs, and new third baseman Jack Howell has marks of .285 and 18.

That Bob Boone is batting .222, Schofield .238 and McLemore .245 can hardly be construed as upsets. But what of the cover boys on the Angels’ 1988 media guide, Joyner and Brian Downing?

Before the New York series, Downing was hitting .179, Joyner .272 and combined, they had produced just 3 home runs and 17 RBIs. Noting this, Port was moved to comment: “When Wally Joyner really gets things going like he’s capable of, and Brian Downing hits his stride, that would be better than any deal I could possibly make.”

In New York, Downing hit his stride, clubbing 3 home runs in 3 games and becoming the Angels’ leader with a grand total of 4. Joyner, however, went 1 for 11, dropping his average to .257 and leaving him with only 2 home runs and 11 RBIs.

Joyner has attempted to chalk this up as a typical slow start. “I’ve always gotten off to slow starts, even in college ball and high school ball,” he said. “The only year I didn’t was 1986 and that’s because I was coming off winter ball and was already in a groove. I guess it takes a while to get into gear.”

Perhaps. Joyner also had a rough beginning in 1987, but after 37 games, he had recovered well enough to be batting .289 with 8 home runs and 27 RBIs.

Joyner admits to pressing a bit--he has spoken often of needing big numbers in 1988 to sweeten his arbitration case in 1989--and Rojas has recently attempted to ease the pressure by moving Joyner from the cleanup spot to the No. 3 position in the lineup.

Joyner had most of his success in ’86 and ’87 batting third in the order, where he gets to see a fastball from time to time. At cleanup, Joyner has been deluged with breaking balls and off-speed pitches--and not responded especially well.

But in New York, with Davis’ bat starting to cool, Rojas moved Joyner back to cleanup and it was the same old result: More junk from the pitchers, and no production from Joyner.

DEFENSE

To lead the American League in errors, as the Angels do, is no small undertaking when you have 5-time Gold Glove winner Boone catching, Schofield and Joyner in the infield and White, until his knee surgery, in center field. But there the Angels are, with 37 errors in 37 games--an indication that the Ray-in-left and Davis-in-right experiments have shattered a few test tubes.

Ray has committed five errors but Davis, shockingly, has surpassed him with six. Roughly, that translates to a 22-error pace for Ray and a 26-error pace for Davis.

Consider that Downing, a converted catcher with neither foot speed nor finesse, once went 244 consecutive games in the Angel outfield without an error. Howell, with no previous professional outfield experience, played 89 games there last year and committed two errors.

“If you had told me a month ago that on May 16, this would the case with our defense, I would have told you ‘That’s out of the question,’ without hesitation,” Port said.

But hesitation has precisely been the problem with Ray and Davis. Routine line drives to left and right fields shouldn’t be extra-base threats. But they are in the Angel outfield.

And the club’s saving grace between Ray and Davis, the slick-fielding White, is now on the disabled list, leaving this outfield without a safety valve. Until White’s return, projected for late July, things don’t figure to improve.

NO FARM AID

And where’s the help from the minor leagues?

When Downing had to be put on the disabled list with sore ribs, the Angels recalled one Junior Noboa, career minor-leaguer, whom the club acquired in March in a minor league trade. When White followed Downing onto the disabled list, the Angels replaced him with career utility man Chico Walker, who came to the Angels in another minor league trade during the winter.

The down side of the Angels’ post-1985 youth movement has been a raiding of its farm system. Most of the organization’s top hitting prospects are already in Anaheim, leaving the cupboard virtually bare at triple A Edmonton.

The Angels sorely need a left-handed pinch-hitter and Edmonton’s Jim Eppard fits the bill, except he’s batting .218. It would have been nice if Dante Bichette, the touted outfield prospect, had been ready to replace White, but he’s batting just .248 with 4 home runs and 17 RBIs.

“We don’t have anybody really doing well in Edmonton,” Rojas said. “The only guy hitting down there was Chico.”

Of course, Doug Jennings and Mark Ryal were Angel property as recently as December. But through short-sightedness or recklessness, the Angels left Jennings unprotected last winter and Oakland snatched him up. Jennings, who had 30 home runs and 104 RBIs for class-AA Midland last year, is playing a valuable reserve role for the first-place A’s. Ryal was released in spring training.

Edmonton’s pitching offers no solutions, either, now that Harvey has graduated. The Trappers’ staff is cluttered with 30ish types of limited ability (Jack Lazorko, Terry Clark), retreads (Joe Johnson, Rich Monteleone) and failed projects (Urbano Lugo, Mike Cook).

And Port is reluctant to dip into the lower levels of the farm system to rush a youngster and risk crippling his progress. Remember Bob Kipper? Chuck Finley and Fraser are suffering through similar growing pains now.

And what of the manager the Angels may have rushed? With no previous managerial experience other than in winter ball, Rojas is basically undergoing on-the-job-training with a team that has him working overtime.

“We’re giving him a crash course--on the down side of that term,” Port said wryly. “As it is with any manager, Cookie has done some things I might have done 50% differently. We, otherwise, have not given him a hell of a lot to be happy about--and by that, I mean yours truly and the players.

“We have sure given him a lot of managing to try and do.”

In brief, Rojas’ managerial philosophy is this: Go with a set lineup, use speed on the bases whenever possible and rely on your bullpen.

But already, he has been forced away from a set lineup by slumping hitters and injuries to Downing and White, has grown more conservative on the basepaths because he frequently is playing from behind, and has been burned repeatedly by the bullpen. And, by pulling his starters in favor of an unreliable relief corps, Rojas has not only lost some games, but irked some starting pitchers as well.

The decision to keep Noboa on the roster over Bill Buckner was a peculiar one. Rojas said he values Noboa as a pinch-runner but has used him in only five games, basically wasting a roster spot. And recently, the Angels’ struggles have driven Rojas to strange strategy--pinch-hitting for Davis with George Hendrick, for instance. But managers, like players, can also press when things are not going well.

Besides, the Angels’ mess predates Rojas by a good stretch. Remember, this club finished tied for last in the West Division last year. And on Aug. 5 of last season, the Angels were 56-52, one-half game out of first place. Since then, they are 33-58--25 games under .500.

What we have here is a situation that won’t be righted with a single trade. There’s a chance that the starting rotation will smooth out, if and when Witt resumes winning. Establishing Harvey as the bullpen stopper--Moore or no Moore--would also be a step in the right direction. Joyner should eventually start driving in runs and the rest of the young infield is worth keeping together.

The Angels aren’t going to catch Oakland this season, so the organization’s vision should be trained on 1989 and beyond.

As for the present, patience is probably the best policy. In Anaheim, this will be a summer of gritting teeth and trying to bear it.

Just as it is in Baltimore.