McCaskill Can’t Help the Angels in 6-2 Loss to A’s

This is how the best-laid plans of mice and managers named Cookie do sometimes go astray:

First, you reshuffle your rotation so that Kirk McCaskill, owner of a 6-2 career record against the Oakland Athletics, is in position to make a start in your mid-August, last-ditch series at Oakland. And if that requires pitching McCaskill on three days’ rest in Seattle, something you swore you’d never do, so be it. This is called planning ahead.

Then, you wait 10 days for McCaskill’s all-important start. Along the way, McCaskill loses a one-run game while throwing 145 pitches--his highest total since undergoing arthroscopic elbow surgery in 1987.

Then, the day of reckoning finally arrives. McCaskill is about to have his moment against the A’s. He begins to warm up in the bullpen.

And the middle finger on McCaskill’s right hand begins to go numb. Then the hand. Then theforearm, followed by a rush of pain shooting all the way to the elbow.

You wind up having to scratch McCaskill and substitute with reliever Stewart Cliburn, who has yet to start a game in the major leagues, let alone a game against the team with the best record in baseball.

You wind up losing, 6-2.

Angel Manager Cookie Rojas’ preparation for Saturday afternoon’s game at Oakland Coliseum was nearly two weeks in the making, but never in that preparation did something called a radial nerve enter into his thinking.

The radial nerve runs from the knuckle through the back of the hand, all the way to the elbow. The elbow remains a problematic area for McCaskill and the nerve became irritated enough Saturday to force McCaskill off the mound after only a few warmup pitches.

“It bothered me right from the first pitch,” McCaskill said. “At first, it wasn’t pain. It was kind of like numbness, like there was something there.

“Then, it felt more like pain. When I tried to throw the ball, there was pain in the middle knuckle. Then, it moved up the arm.”

Dr. Rick Bost, the Athletics’ team orthopedist, examined McCaskill and told him the condition wasn’t serious.

“He says it’s nothing to worry about,” McCaskill said. “I don’t think I’ll miss (another) start.”

McCaskill missed this one, and although Cliburn pitched admirably, allowing 6 hits and 3 earned runs in 6 innings, the result was the Angels’ third straight defeat to Oakland, dropping them 16 1/2 games behind the first-place A’s.

That’s the deficit the Angels faced on June 16--the day they began the 31-11 run that supposedly turned their season around.

Now, the turnaround has turned around, and today, the Angels are one loss away from being swept in their four-game series by the Bay.

“We worked extremely hard to dig ourselves out of that hole,” said a somber Brian Downing, the Angels’ designated hitter. “We don’t want to go back.”

The Angels are 3-8 in their last 11 games, a slide that has cost them seven games in the standings.

“Weird things happen to this club,” Rojas told reporters. “The hand just started hurting him while he was warming up. . . . That’s the first time he’s ever come up with that. His last start, he went eight innings (actually 7), with no problems.”

Or maybe the last start was the problem. Dr. Lewis Yocum, the Angels’ team physician, will examine McCaskill Monday in New York to determine if the pitcher will be able to make his next start.

As an emergency starter, Cliburn didn’t fare badly. He struggled with his control in the first inning--walking three batters, including Mark McGwire--but struggled more with his own defense during the next five innings.

He would have been through the third inning if Angel shortstop Dick Schofield hadn’t thrown wildly to first base on Carney Lansford’s two-out grounder. Schofield’s error prolonged the inning so that Ron Hassey could drive in two unearned runs with a home run over the center-field fence.

And even that home run could have been averted. Before falling over the fence, the ball bounced off the glove of Angel center fielder Devon White, who said he lost track of the ball in the sun.

“Without the sun, I’m catching that ball,” White said. “The last couple of steps, I lost the ball totally. I just put my glove up in the area where I thought the ball would be.”

White lost another ball in the sun in the eighth inning, and it led to another Oakland run. He dropped Glenn Hubbard’s drive into the left-center field gap for an error, enabling Terry Steinbach to move to third base.

Then came another Rojas-ordered intentional walk. And the result, yes, was another run, courtesy of pinch-hitter Don Baylor’s sacrifice fly.

“Cliburn did a good job,” Rojas said. “We just gave them too many outs.”

That, and the fact McCaskill wasn’t around for any of the outs, meant for yet another long day for the Angels in Oakland.

The last time McCaskill faced the A’s, on July 25 in Anaheim, he beat them, 2-1.

“This is pretty frustrating,” McCaskill said. “My arm felt great the last few days and for this to happen now . . . .”

Angel Notes

Stewart Cliburn hadn’t started a game since . . . well, no one really knew for sure. The Angels’ publicity staff announced that Cliburn’s last start came some time in 1983, when he was pitching in the minor leagues with Nashua. Cliburn, however, said it came in 1982 with Spokane. “Nashua?” he said. “I thought I was in the bullpen all year that year. Maybe I made a spot start, like this one here, but I don’t remember it.” Either way, he said his first big-league start amounted to a moral victory, if not one that could be recorded in the standings. “My job was to at least give the team a chance to win it,” Cliburn said. “And we were in it, all the way, I felt. We had the bases loaded (in the seventh inning) and the tying run on base with Chili (Davis) at the plate. We just didn’t get the timely hit.” In that instance, Davis barely undercut a Rick Honeycutt pitch, sending Oakland right fielder Jose Canseco to the wall to pull down the final out of the inning. . . . Honeycutt earned his fifth save, protecting the win for Bob Welch, who improved his record to 14-6. Welch worked 6 and allowed 2 runs on 6 hits. He had a shutout through six innings before Jack Howell opened the seventh with his 12th home run of the season.

DeWayne Buice was confronted with another bases-loaded situation in the eighth inning, and this time, he escaped unscathed, striking out Canseco for the third out. Three days earlier, Buice surrendered a bases-loaded walk and a grand slam to Mark McGwire in the eighth inning. “They can be pitched to--all of them,” Buice said, obviously feeling better about matters. “And they can be beat. What happened to the 1927 Yankees? The 1927 Yankees are all dead.” . . . Earlier in that eighth inning, Angel Manager Cookie Rojas instructed Sherman Corbett to intentionally walk Walter Weiss to load the bases with one out. That brought up pinch-hitter Don Baylor, whose sacrifice fly to center field brought in Oakland’s sixth and final run.