Fraser Serves Up a Home Run but Puts Down Orioles, 3-2

A little more than a month from now, on the day the Angels hand out their annual postseason awards, Willie Fraser figures to spend a lot of time applauding and extending his palm in congratulations to the various winners.

Angel most valuable player? Right now, the best bet is Chili Davis, who drove in his 80th run of the season Sunday during the Angels’ 3-2 victory over the Baltimore Orioles.

Pitcher of the year and rookie of the year? Give them both to Bryan Harvey, who also happens to be a leading candidate for American League rookie of the year.

And Fraser? Most likely, an afterthought, at best.

But think again.

If ever there was a poster boy for this convoluted Angel season, a definitive Angel for a weird 1988, it would have to be Fraser, 24, a right-hander from Newburgh, N.Y.

Like the Angels, Fraser is .500 this season--an even 10-10 after Sunday’s seven-inning stint against the Orioles.

And like the Angels, Fraser hasn’t looked very good getting there.

Today, Fraser leads the major leagues in home runs allowed. He surrendered No. 31 to Joe Orsulak, and that finally moved him past Seattle’s Mark Langston, who is stuck on 30.

Fraser also has the highest earned-run average--5.58--of any major league pitcher with 15 or more starts.

He also happens to be the only 10-game winner on the Angels’ pitching staff.

“Who would have said, before the season, that he’d be our first 10-game winner?” said Angel Manager Cookie Rojas, asking the question of the hour.

“It is kind of surprising considering the pitchers we have on this staff,” Fraser said.

This Angel pitching staff began 1988 with three starters who had won at least 15 games at least once in the previous three seasons--Mike Witt, Kirk McCaskill and Dan Petry. Fraser, meanwhile, was coming off a 10-10 rookie season during which he gave up 26 home runs.

This season, Fraser has given up home runs at an even faster pace. He has allowed at least 1 in 11 of his last 12 starts, and he gave up a club-record 5 home runs Tuesday in New York. And Fraser has been most democratic in his distribution of the wealth; he has surrendered home runs to the likes of Randy Velarde, Terry Francona, Gary Pettis and Ron Washington as well as Jose Canseco, Dave Winfield and Don Mattingly.

Orsulak, who drove a sixth-inning pitch from Fraser into the right-field seats, had only two home runs in his first 273 at-bats this season.

But with 10 victories, Fraser has 1 more than Witt, 2 more than McCaskill, 3 more than Chuck Finley and 7 more than Petry, who has spent more than 2 months of the disabled list.

And therein, Fraser says, lies one of the keys.

“Everybody else has been hurt,” Fraser said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to stay healthy and keep going out there. That’s given me more chances to go out there and get a win.”

Fraser is the only member of the Angels’ rotation who has not missed a start for health reasons this season. Witt strained his back and Finley hyperextended his thumb and Petry sprained an ankle and McCaskill hurt his arm, so Fraser has remained the one constant.

That doesn’t suggest, however, that Fraser’s position was never in jeopardy.

“He was on the edge of being moved to the bullpen, back when he was 6-10,” said Rojas, alluding to those rough late July days when Fraser was rumored to be headed everywhere from out of the rotation to Edmonton.

“It was mostly (pitching coach Marcel) Lachemann who pushed for him,” Rojas said. “He kept saying, ‘Let’s stick with him.’ And, he turned out to be right.”

Fraser has now won four of his last five starts, including a 2-1 one-hitter against Seattle on Aug. 8. His previous victory--a 15-6 decision over the Yankees despite the five home runs--may have been the result of good fortune, but Sunday’s win over Baltimore was mainly the product of good pitching.

In his seven innings, Fraser limited the Orioles to 4 hits, scattering them in 4 innings. Eddie Murray had a triple and a single, and Terry Kennedy added a seventh-inning double, but Orsulak’s sixth-inning home run accounted for the only real damage.

In the eighth, Fraser was replaced by Sherman Corbett, who waded through two choppy innings to earn his first big league save. Corbett opened the bottom of the ninth by yielding singles to Jim Traber and Larry Sheets, but he escaped with only one run by retiring Mickey Tettleton, Pete Stanicek and Bill Ripken on fly balls to the outfield.

The Angels scored two of their three runs on sacrifice flies by Davis and Thad Bosley. Jack Howell’s sixth-inning double brought home their first run.

That was enough to allow Fraser to go where no other Angel pitcher has gone this season.

“That’s real nice,” Fraser said, considering the 10 victories. “That makes all the hard work and Lach and Cookie trusting in me pay off.

“Lach and Cookie could have sent me down when I was 6-10 with a six-something ERA. But they trusted me and kept sending me out there. Like I was telling my fiancee the other night, ‘They must have confidence in me, because they keep pitching me, sometimes after just three days’ rest.’ ”

That trust may be more a product of Angel attrition than unbending faith in Fraser, but no one in the Angel clubhouse Sunday wanted to quibble about such matters. Today Fraser is 10-10 . . . and the Angels are 62-62.

Angel Notes

It took rookie Sherman Corbett 24 appearances and 36 innings before he earned his first big-league save. As the Angels’ lone left-handed reliever and with no overpowering pitch, Corbett is usually limited to middle relief and spot situations in the later innings. But Corbett said he figured he might finally get his chance Sunday. “Right now, we’re a little short in the bullpen,” Corbett said. “Stew (Cliburn) is sick, (Greg) Minton’s been throwing a lot of innings. And, (the Orioles) have a lot of left-handed hitters, so I knew I was going to be used. I’ve been warming up in the bullpen every day of this road trip. Today, I was a little tired, but I kept after them. Luckily, I got enough balls hit right at some people.” . . . Cliburn was again unavailable because of the intestinal virus that hospitalized him Saturday. Doctors have advised him to sit out at least one more day before trying to pitch again. “I still haven’t been able to eat at all,” said a pale Cliburn after Sunday’s game. “But I’m glad that all it was was a virus. At first, I thought it was appendicitis. This, at least, is better than that.”

Thad Bosley had to be removed from the game after he fouled a ball off his right foot in the eighth inning. Bosley limped off with an 0-1 count, which pinch-hitter Tony Armas inherited. Armas eventually struck out. “I don’t know how long he’s going to be out,” Angel Manager Cookie Rojas said of Bosley. “The ankle puffed up on him pretty good.” So, for the time being, Armas becomes the Angels’ regular left fielder. . . . The unflappable Willie Fraser, on the 31 home runs he has allowed this year, which place him within seven of Don Sutton’s single-season Angel record: “The home runs haven’t been killing me. When I give ‘em up, they’re usually only one-run home runs. It’s the two- and three-run home runs that can give the other team momentum. I’ll keep giving up home runs if it means I’m picking up a win.”