Baseball : Gibson Usually Hits His Peak When the Season Hits the Stretch

His impact on the Dodgers can be measured by his being a candidate for the National League’s most-valuable-player award, but Kirk Gibson’s best may be yet to come.

Gibson has generally been a strong closer.

In regular-season games of September and October, Gibson had 586 at-bats--the equivalent of a season--with the Detroit Tigers from 1981 through 1987.

Over that span of pennant and salary drives, Gibson batted .297, hit 32 homers and drove in 101 runs. Had he produced those figures in one season, they would have been career highs. As it is, Gibson’s figures project to a .300 batting average and 30 home runs, both career highs, as well as 86 runs batted in and 31 stolen bases.

The Dodgers, of course, are hoping that the intense Gibson, sniffing a division title, has one of his strongest finishing kicks. They would settle for one like 1986, when he batted .307 and drove in 23 runs in September-October, or 1981, when he batted .331 with 19 RBIs, or 1987, when he batted .292 with 13 RBIs.

Here are Gibson’s yearly figures for the regular-season games of September-October, batting average, homers and RBIs:

1981--.331, 3, 19.

1982--Injured.

1983--.319, 5, 11.

1984--.250, 4, 14.

1985--.275, 6, 21.

1986--.307, 8, 23.

1987--.292, 6, 13.

The losses of Gibson and Lance Parrish have forced the Tigers to rely on pitching and execution. The American League East leaders began a weekend series at Milwaukee 10th in the league in hitting at .258 but first in sacrifice bunts with 53.

Said Manager Sparky Anderson: “This is the best bunting team I’ve ever managed. I don’t know of anything more important than getting the runners into scoring position.”

Dodger omen: Of the 72 division winners, excluding the strike year of 1981, only 2 failed to win if ahead by 2 1/2 games or more on Labor Day. The 1969 Chicago Cubs lost after leading by 4 1/2 games, and the 1978 Boston Red Sox lost after leading by 5 1/2.

Mounting injuries to his pitching staff have finally begun to erode Manager Roger Craig’s confidence in the San Francisco Giants.

“How many times can you reach into your bullpen or the minor leagues?” Craig asked. “How many pitchers can you lose before it starts catching up to you?”

Each pitcher in the Giants’ opening-day rotation has been on the disabled list except Rick Reuschel, and Dave Dravecky and Mike LaCoss remain on the 21-day list because of operations that may keep them sidelined for the rest of the season.

In fact, with four pitchers already on the list--Joe Price and Terry Mulholland are the others--there was no place to put Kelly Downs, who left his last start Wednesday with an inflamed shoulder.

The Giants have used 16 pitchers and have run a shuttle to Phoenix, where the triple-A Firebirds have been forced to employ 25 pitchers, including major league retreads Gary Lucas, Marty Bystrom, Ron Davis, Ed Lynch, Bill Scherrer and Lary Sorensen.

The San Diego Padres have continued to enjoy a rebirth under Jack McKeon, who has demonstrated an ability to serve as both general manager and manager, despite an edict by club president Chub Feeney that he choose one or the other when the season ends.

The Padres, entering a weekend series in Montreal, picked up only 1 1/2 games on the Dodgers since the firing of Larry Bowa on May 28, but their 46-34 record in that span was the best in the National League and restored team confidence to the point that Tony Gwynn went to Montreal saying of the race, “I still don’t think we’re out of it.”

McKeon’s major contribution has been the stabilizing of the pitching staff. Bowa was averaging 2.7 pitchers a game and seldom gave a starter the chance to work out of a jam. McKeon is averaging 1.7.

“Before, some of these guys would have been out of the game in the third or fourth innings,” he said. “They were always looking over their shoulder. You can’t pitch that way. Now they know we’ll let them get out of any mess they get into. They know it’s their game.”

McKeon’s faith in his starting pitching is illustrated by relief pitcher Greg Booker. He was in 17 of 46 games under Bowa but has been in only 12 of 82 under McKeon and has pitched just 4 times since July 2. And Booker is McKeon’s son-in-law.

Asked whether he would have had the New York Yankees in first place now, the fired Billy Martin told Michael Kay of the New York Post:

“Let me put it this way . . . I have belief in myself and my staff, and I believe we would have been in first place. Now make sure you write that I’m not knocking Lou Piniella and his staff.

“It’s just that any manager who believes in himself like I do believes he would be in first place. We had more injuries than they do now and we were right there.”

Mike Harkey, former Cal State Fullerton star approaching the end of his first minor league season with a combined record of 16-3 in double-A and triple-A, is expected to join the Cub rotation next year, returning Calvin Schiraldi to the late relief role he was assigned with the Boston Red Sox.

Rich (Goose) Gossage, who has blown 12 of 22 save opportunities as the closer, would become the set-up man. Gossage, with no off-speed pitch to complement his fading fastball, has been booed heatedly and repeatedly by the generally forgiving Wrigley Field fans.

Said Gossage: “I guess I’d boo, too.”

Collusion update:

--Arbitrator Tom Roberts, having already ruled that the owners acted in concert against the free agents of 1985-86, has adjourned the penalty hearing until mid-October, meaning that at least two years will have passed before the owners are made to pay for their violations.

--Arbitrator George Nicolau has yet to offer a clue as to when he will rule on the player union’s contention that the owners acted in concert again in the off-season of 1986-87. Initially, Nicolau was expected to deliver that decision in May or June.

Meanwhile, he continues to hear testimony on the third of the union’s collusion grievances, pertaining to the winter of 1987-88.

The Atlanta Braves returned from a 12-game, 4-city trip only to have to play a 5 p.m. game with the Cubs on Thursday. Owner Ted Turner arranged the schedule so that his color version of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”--which is not really his life story--could be shown in prime time on TBS.

“We’re like an ‘Andy of Mayberry’ rerun,” one Brave said. “They put us on anytime they want.”

Jimmy Snyder is not expected to return as manager of the Seattle Mariners, a good thing considering the stunt he pulled in Baltimore Monday night.

Snyder initiated a long fuss with the umpires over the way the Orioles used their DiamondVision scoreboard. He argued that the Orioles received an unfair advantage when the board showed Seattle reliever Bill Wilkinson taking his warmups after entering the game, then failed to do the same when Oriole reliever Doug Sisk came in.

“The last thing we should have to worry about is the way DiamondVision is used,” umpire Mike Reilly said, having displayed inexplicable courtesy while listening to Snyder’s harangue.

Baltimore Manager Frank Robinson shook his head and said: “I’m sitting right there in the dugout. Don’t you think I can see the guy warming up? No one comes in here and tells us how to run our DiamondVision.”

The kicker: Wilkinson pitched well, Sisk didn’t and Seattle won, 7-3.

The election of National League President Bart Giamatti as successor to Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, initially scheduled for the winter baseball meetings in Atlanta, could occur as early as the owners’ quarterly meeting in Montreal Sept. 7-8.

Saturday’s rehiring of John Wathan as the Kansas City Royals’ manager seemed to be an upset, considering that the Royals are wracked by clubhouse dissension.

One of the most telling statistics regarding the New York Yankees’ pitching problems is this: The Yankees have lost 7 games that they led with one out to go. The Yankees would be in first place in the American League East if they had won the seven.

Pitcher Jimmy Key, on the many troubles of the Toronto Blue Jays: “We need to make some changes. We need a spark to get us going. I can’t see us coming back next spring and being better off with the same team. There are too many bad attitudes here.”