McCaskill Hits Rangers With the Old 1-2 : Angel Right-Hander Strikes Out 10, Allows Only 3 Singles in 3-0 Win

So exasperating had the Angel season become that Manager Cookie Rojas recently ordered a spanking new, regulation punching bag installed just inside the tunnel leading to the dugout.

Better to invest in the bag, figured Rojas, than watch the daily flight of flung helmets or dodge the splinters of bats bludgeoned against tunnel walls in anger. Forty losses and a last-place standing in the American League West can do that to a team.

“I’ve seen a lot of guys kicking walls lately,” Rojas had said. “I’m thinking it’s better to kick a bag of sand than a wall.”

Good point. Then again, perhaps Rojas would prefer Kirk McCaskill’s method of releasing tension. All you do is step on the mound, pitch a shutout, strike out a season-high 10 Texas Rangers and allow just 3 lousy singles. Your team wins, 3-0, and everyone is all smiles.

And as an added bonus, you don’t have to know how to throw a right cross or an uppercut, just a fastball and a curveball.

Which is exactly what McCaskill did Thursday before 21,754 at Anaheim Stadium. He curved and fastballed the Rangers to death.

He struck out the barrel-chested Pete Incaviglia, among the league’s home run leaders, three times. He caused Ruben Sierra, as pure a hitter as you’ll ever see, to snap his bat in anger after a ninth-inning strikeout. He even persuaded Rojas to let him finish the game after giving up a single, a line-drive out to second and a walk in the final inning.

This was McCaskill’s day, all right.

McCaskill knows this because days to remember have been few and far between. There was April 27, 1987, when he underwent surgery to remove bone chips in his right elbow. Then there was--well, Thursday.

“It’s been a long time since I felt that way out on the mound,” McCaskill said. “It felt pretty good.”

Why shouldn’t it, what with those 10 strikeouts, the shutout and only his third victory in eight decisions this season. McCaskill even went so far as to call the outing his best since surgery, which wasn’t much of a shocker considering the way things have gone since. It also marked the first time, he said, that his curveball worked as advertised. This one went where he told it.

“That’s the best stuff he’s had and maintained throughout the game all year,” Rojas said.

You wouldn’t have known it from McCaskill’s time in the bullpen before game’s beginning. Nothing worked--fastball, curveball, didn’t matter. “Terrible,” McCaskill later described his warm-up.

But once the game started, McCaskill was fine, at times unhittable. He struck out two in the first inning, another in each of the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh. Then there was Sierra’s exit in the ninth, when the Texas outfielder strode angrily back to the Ranger dugout with only a shattered bat handle in his hand.

Fittingly, the final out was Mike Stanley’s swinging strikeout with runners on first and second.

End game. Begin McCaskill resurgence?

“Looking at the whole season, I don’t think I’ve been pitching all that great,” he said. “But I’ve been building.”

He started with the fastball, a staple. Next came the curveball, which McCaskill said he needs to enhance the fastball. At least on Thursday, one pitch complemented the other.

But McCaskill is reluctant to go much past guarded optimism. This was a start, he said, nothing more.

He was full of surprises, though. Besides the rejuvenated curveball, which he now throws without pain or worry, there also was a new routine. McCaskill retreated to the inner regions of the Angel tunnel whenever his team took its turn at bat.

Fellow starter Mike Witt does the same thing, and McCaskill decided to give it a try. The thinking: Ignorance is bliss.

“I sit down in the tunnel and try not to get caught up in what our guys are doing,” he said. “I just play the troll role down there: I appear every half inning.”

As McCaskill sat in the dark, the Angels dinked away at Ranger starter Paul Kilgus. Wally Joyner singled in Brian Downing for the first run and a 1-0 first-inning lead.

In the fourth, Bob Boone provided the Angels with their second run, singling sharply to left and scoring Devon White from second. White also scored in the eighth, when Ranger reliever Dale Mohorcic plunked Dick Schofield on the left arm with the bases loaded.

That’s all McCaskill needed. Except for brief scares in the fifth, sixth and ninth innnings, McCaskill had few problems. In one stretch, he retired 12 consecutive Ranger batters.

But back, completely healed from April 27, 1987? McCaskill asks for just a little more time.

“I don’t want to say (I’m back),” he said. “I said that in spring training that I’m back. I just want to try to build on this.”

What a nice foundation.

Angel Notes

Relief pitcher Donnie Moore, on the disabled list with a sore knee, continues to move closer to reactivation. He pitched two more innings Wednesday night for the Palm Spring Angels and allowed 1 run, 1 hit and struck out 3. In his 8 innings of rehabilitative work, Moore has a 2.25 earned-run average, has walked 4 and struck out 7. An illness in the family prevented Moore from traveling with the Angels Thursday to Kansas City, though, Manager Cookie Rojas intimated that the reliever will join the team later this week.

Angel physical therapist Roger Williams will remain in Anaheim during the trip to work with injured catcher Butch Wynegar (toe) and second baseman Mark McLemore (blood clot). . . . Third baseman Jack Howell went 0 for 4 Thursday, giving him just 4 hits in his last 48 at-bats. . . . Devon White was hitless Thursday, but walked twice, reached base on a fielder’s choice, stole two bases and scored twice.