Angels Go to 10th to Win--and Lose

The Angels, baseball’s baddest road warriors these days, wheeled their show into Anaheim Stadium for a twin bill Friday night. This is a team that has wreaked a lot of havoc on the road but hasn’t been intimidating at home this season.

Only three teams in the majors--the Dodgers, the Athletics and the Twins--have as many road victories (32), but the Angels came home to a most-unimpressive 23-28 record on their home field.

It took them 10 innings in the opener Friday night, and Manager Cookie Rojas almost swallowed his gum in the ninth, but the Angels rallied, and rallied again, to pull out a 6-5 victory before 43,461, the largest crowd ever to see a doubleheader at Anaheim Stadium.

The Angels maintained their momentum early in the nightcap, scoring once in the first and twice in the second off former teammate Jerry Ruess. But the White Sox came back to tie the game in the fourth on three hits, including Ozzie Guillen’s two-run triple, and the game went into the fifth inning tied, 3-3.

Playing in their first doubleheader in Anaheim since Sept. 22, 1986, the Angels looked as if they were going to break out of their home-bleak-home doldrums in the eighth inning of the opener when Brian Downing hit a three-run homer to give starter Mike Witt a 5-2 lead.

But it was a short-lived advantage. The first four White Sox in the ninth had singles and before Sherman Corbett, who relieved Bryan Harvey (who relieved Witt), got the final out, the score was tied again, 5-5.

The Angels loaded the bases on three singles in the 10th and Wally Joyner scored the winning run when Jack Howell hit a sharp grounder off the glove of drawn-in first baseman Dan Pasqua.

Could that have been the turning point? Had the Angels managed to bring a bit of their road magic back home?

“Magic? You can call it that,” Rojas said. “I don’t. I call it playing good baseball.”

Rojas probably had some other words to describe his team’s play in the ninth inning of the first game, however.

Witt had allowed just five hits in the first eight innings and the two that chased him weren’t exactly line drives. Donnie Hill beat out a grounder to short and Guillen looped a single to left.

But Rojas decided Witt had “had enough,” and brought in Harvey. The rookie reliever yielded a single to Fred Manrique to load the bases and a two-run single to Dave Gallagher that cut the Angels’ lead to 5-4.

Steve Lyons then hit a shot to Joyner that bounced off the first baseman’s glove. Joyner bounced on the ball and fired an ill-advised throw to third where Howell made a diving catch.

“If Joyner fields that ball, we might have had a double play,” Rojas said. “Then, when he made that throw, I almost swallowed my gum.”

Rojas probably was still choking when Harvey uncorked a wild pitch that allowed Manrique to score the tying run. Then the Angels got out of trouble when Pasqua lined into a double play. Rojas went to Corbett, who struck out Daryl Boston for the final out.

Witt, who scattered seven hits in eight-plus innings and struck out eight and walked two, wasn’t exactly pleased with himself.

“The team comes up with three runs and it wasn’t exactly in my mind to give up two hits right away,” he said. “It’s nice to have the win for the team, but it’s a tough situation to give up a 5-2 lead and then end up burning through the bullpen in the first game of a doubleheader.”

Witt was in the position to question his performance only because of Downing, whose 17th homer gave the Angels the three-run bulge. Ten of Downing’s 17 homers have either tied a game or put his club ahead. And five have come in the seventh inning or later.

Devon White opened the eighth with a double and took third on Johnny Ray’s sacrifice. Joyner was walked intentionally and then Downing got all of Chicago starter Jack McDowell’s first pitch, sending a towering fly ball into the seats in left.

“I like to hit in those situations and I always have,” Downing said. “I like to have the adrenaline flowing.”

The Angels didn’t appear to have much of anything flowing in the early innings.

McDowell, 22, had a no-decision in last Sunday’s 7-5 Angel victory in Chicago, but he lasted just 3 inning and yielded 5 runs on 5 hits during that outing. Still, the right-hander had allowed just 19 earned runs in his last 10 starts before Friday for a 2.62 earned-run average over that span.

He held the Angels scoreless for five innings before allowing three hits and two runs, one of which was unearned, in the sixth.

White and Ray opened the inning with singles to right, but White scored and Ray ended up on second when right-fielder Harold Baines overran Ray’s hit. Joyner followed with a run-scoring single to center, but McDowell got Downing to pop up and Chili Davis to ground into a double play.

The first player who came to the plate on this evening’s baseball marathon--Chicago’s rookie centerfielder Gallagher--crossed it. He hit a double to left, took third on a sacrifice bunt and scored on Baines’ single to center.

Witt retired the next nine White Sox hitters he faced, four via the strikeout, but Chicago gained a 2-0 advantage when Pasqua hit a long home run to right with one out in the fourth. It was Pasqua’s 25th career hit against the Angels and his eighth home run.

“Winning the first game of a doubleheader is the big one,” Rojas said during the short break between games. “A sweep would be a big lift.”

The way the Angels had been playing at home this season, a split would be a victory of sorts.

Angel Notes

Dan Petry, who has not pitched since June 20 when he sprained his right ankle coming off the mound to field a ball, threw for 20 minutes before Friday night’s doubleheader and said “everything went fine.” Petry, who thought he was recovering quickly but experienced the same pain again while pitching a simulated game three weeks ago, is scheduled to pitch another simulated game Monday. So how did the ankle feel Friday? “I’m not going to say anything except that we’re on target for what we’ve been aiming for and that’s Monday’s simulated game,” Petry said. “I just don’t want to think about anything beyond that.