Cleveland’s Swindell Doesn’t Let Angels Rest Easy

A bit of baseball wisdom from noted dugout philosopher, if not mathematician, Octavio Rivas Rojas:

“You don’t win a war in one battle.”

Those are words the Angels lived by, and died by, Sunday afternoon during their 9-2 loss to the Cleveland Indians before 31,015 at Anaheim Stadium.

According to Cookie’s Corollary, a baseball season is a 6-month war, a 162-game siege, and with the Oakland Athletics coming to town tonight, the war is about to escalate. For that reason, foot soldier Willie Fraser was made sacrificial lamb Sunday, thrown to the Indians on only three days of rest while a more rested pitcher, Kirk McCaskill, sat on the bench in anticipation of the A’s arrival tonight.

McCaskill, 7-5 with a 3.62 earned-run average, last pitched on Tuesday night. Fraser, 6-10 with a 6.26 ERA, previously pitched Wednesday night. And that was after pitching the previous Saturday afternoon.

But the A’s are coming, the A’s are coming, and for the Angels, this is as big a series as they get these days. First-place Oakland leads the fourth-place Angels by 13 games in the American League West standings, but you have to start somewhere, and this is Rojas’ way of getting ready--saving his best pitcher for the occasion.

Fraser might have preferred the Angels hang a little bunting in the upper deck and leave it at that. Asked to start for the third time in the last nine days, Fraser gave up three runs in both the second and third innings, served up the 22nd and 23rd home runs against him this season--tying him for the major league lead--and left after 4 innings to a loud chorus of boos.

“That’s their own prerogative,” Fraser said of the booing. “I haven’t thrown well my last few outings, and when you’re going bad, everybody knows it. They read about it, they see it. I couldn’t get mad at them.

“But, the fans, they don’t understand everything that’s going on.”

Such as?

“Pitching three times on three days rest,” Fraser said. “They don’t look at things like that. They look at the numbers on the board, which is understandable. They don’t know everything behind the situation.”

Making the situation all the more curious is Rojas’ insistence that he wasn’t merely saving McCaskill for the A’s, that he simply didn’t want McCaskill pitching with “three days rest.”

“We had no other choice but Fraser,” Rojas said. “McCaskill had arm surgery last year and I’m not going to use him on three days rest. If I bring in McCaskill on just three days rest and he gets blown out, then the next 10 or 12 games, the whole pitching staff gets screwed up.”

One small point: Had he pitched Sunday, McCaskill would have been working on four days rest, his usual allotment.

“Let’s see,” McCaskill said, counting off the days on his fingers. “I pitched Tuesday. Then there’s Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.”

Four fingers.

“Maybe he’s counting the off-day,” McCaskill said. Then, with a smile, he added, “Must’ve been those nine innings I pitched in Irvine on Thursday.”

McCaskill was kidding about Irvine, but was serious when he mentioned the talk he had with Rojas earlier in the week, when he asked to pitch twice on three days rest in order to bail out the Angels’ limping starting rotation.

“I suggested to Cookie that I go Saturday and Wednesday,” McCaskill said. “My arm feels real good. I could’ve pitched (Sunday), I could’ve pitched on three days rest.

“I think Cookie still has reservations about my arm surgery. And what he says goes. It’s a law.”

Rojas maintains that he’s simply looking at the big picture, a picture that included the 6-game Angel winning streak against Cleveland before Sunday, an upcoming streak of 18 games in 18 days against AL West opponents and the fact that Fraser was facing the Indians’ winningest pitcher, Greg Swindell.

Swindell (11-9) boosted his 1988 record against the Angels to 2-0 with a six-hitter. On May 2, he beat them, 3-0, on a two-hitter. But before Sunday, Swindell lost 8 of his last 9 starts and had not won since May 30.

To Rojas’ way of thinking, the Angels would have had trouble against Swindell either way--with or without Fraser.

“I know Willie is not supposed to be throwing on three days rest, but I had no choice,” Rojas said. “You’ve got to look at the long run. If you mess up one game, it’s only one game. You’ve got to be ready for the rest of the week.”

So Fraser trudged out and took his lumps from the Indians. He managed one scoreless inning--and even had a 1-0 lead--before surrendering a run-scoring double to Willie Upshaw, a sacrifice fly to Chris Bando and a home run to Ron Washington in the second inning.

For Washington, a .236-hitting utility player, it was his second homer of the season.

Then came the third inning--and another home run. Mel Hall struck this one, his fourth of the season, and it triggered another three-run inning for Cleveland. After Upshaw delivered another run-scoring double and Brook Jacoby a run-scoring single, Fraser was down, 6-1.

An inning later, he was also out of the game. He left with 10 defeats, the most on the Angel staff. He left with a 6.26 ERA, compared to the 4.06 mark compiled by the rest of the Angel pitchers. He left with 23 home runs, tying him with Seattle’s Mark Langston for the major-league lead.

“It’s discouraging,” Fraser said. “Every time you go out there, you’re picking up a loss, your ERA goes up, you’re not helping the team. It’s been hard.”

And having to pitch a third straight time on three days rest didn’t make it any easier.

But one game is one game, as Rojas says. The Angels have 65 more to play. And the next three are against the front-running A’s. The Indians are gone and the big guns are here.

McCaskill, most assuredly, is ready and rested.

Angel Notes

Cookie Rojas, on the boos for Willie Fraser: “That was really bad. He’s trying to do the best he can under trying circumstances. The last two or three times he’s gone out there, (the other team) has scored quickly and (the fans) get disenchanted. I just hope this is temporary and he won’t let it get into his mind.” On the latter part, Kirk McCaskill agrees. “Willie and I talk a lot,” McCaskill said, “and I remind of the Ron Darling line--’Pitching is a roller-coaster ride through the land of confidence.’ The bottom line is that Willie has to feel good about himself. He has to look to the long term. He’s going to be a winning pitcher for a long time.” . . . Ghost of Home Runs Past: On the day Fraser moved into a share of the major-league lead for home runs allowed, Don Sutton, Mr. NASA himself, was a postgame visitor in the Angel clubhouse. Sutton, on rehabilitation assignment with the Dodgers, set the Angels’ single-season home run record of 38 last year. With 23 in 1988, Fraser is within striking range of that mark. “I’m not worried about that,” Fraser said. “So I’ve given up 23 home runs. If I gave up 23 home runs and was 10-4, who would care? So I’m tied for the major-league lead. I’m not going to go home and cry about it.”

Angel shortstop Dick Schofield converted the last out of the first inning by gloving a grounder by Mel Hall and stepping on second base to force Julio Franco. But when, in the same motion, Schofield spun and threw toward first, he flung the ball into the Cleveland dugout. No error, though--the inning was already over. Had Schofield forgotten the number of outs? “No, I just threw the ball just in case (the umpire) called (Franco) safe,” Schofield said. “That’s it.” Maybe. At least until the next session of the Angels’ kangaroo court. . . . Franco singled in the fourth inning to extend his hitting streak to 20 games, the second longest streak in the major leagues this year. Franco also owns the longest--21 straight--which he set between May 11 and June 3. . . . The Angels scored their only runs on a first-inning sacrifice fly by Chili Davis and a sixth-inning home run by Devon White, his seventh home run of the season and his second in as many games. Davis’ sacrifice fly left him with 60 runs batted in, putting him on a pace of precisely 100 RBIs.