BASEBALL PLAYOFFS : It Doesn’t Hurt to Start Hurst Against A’s : Red Sox Decide to Hold Clemens Off Until Game 2 of the AL Playoffs

Fenway Park will open its hallowed doors to postseason baseball once again today, and though it has been only 2 years, the old place sure has been missed.

Last October, they held some playoffs in an inflated fiberglass Kaiser roll called the Metrodome and guess what happened? The Minnesota Twins won the World Series.

And they say weird things happen at Fenway.

Yes, Fenway is back because the Boston Red Sox are back, champions again of the American League East for the second time in three seasons. And for the home team, privy to all the nooks and crannies and angles and oddities, Fenway can be a great place for a playoff, as the 1986 Angels are still trying to forget.

But today is another day, as they say, complete with a new opponent, new circumstances and a new challenge of undeniably frightening proportions.

Today, the Green Monster meets the green monsters.

The Oakland Athletics are here. In this town, scarier words haven’t been spoken since, “And it’s a ground ball to Bill Buckner.” The Oakland Athletics are Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Dave Parker, Carney Lansford and Dave Henderson. They are biceps baseball, 10-2 routs and pitchers running for cover. They are a mugging in green and gold.

The A’s began spring training talking cockily about 100 victories at a time when everybody else just wants to take them one at a time. The A’s breezed to those 100 victories, and more, winding up with 104, which led the majors and aced the American League West by 13 games.

Today, they begin the American League playoffs just as confidently. Game 1 starts at 10:20 a.m. (PDT), pitting Oakland’s Dave Stewart (21-12) against Boston’s Bruce Hurst (18-6), and there will be at least 3 more games after that.

How do the A’s assess their chances?

“If we execute the way we’ve been doing, we’re going to win it,” Parker said coolly.

Stewart, a 2-time 20-game winner with these A’s, said he’s glad he won’t be in Hurst’s red socks this afternoon. Nor in Roger Clemens’ nor Mike Boddicker’s after that.

“I haven’t seen a lineup, man for man, that’s better than this one in a looong time,” Stewart said. “You probably have to look back to Cincinnati in the 1970s. That’s the lineup that had Pete Rose, Tony Perez, Joe Morgan, Ken Griffey, Johnny Bench and big George Foster.

“I never pitched against that team, but I watched ‘em hit. And I haven’t seen one like it since then--until this one.”

This one features:

--Canseco, baseball’s first 40-40 man. In his third major league season, at 24, Canseco hit 42 home runs, stole 40 bases, drove in 124 runs and batted .307. Baseball hasn’t had a triple crown winner since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, but Canseco could be the next one.

--McGwire, 25, who has a total of 81 home runs and 217 runs batted in in his first two major league seasons. His 1988 numbers: .260, 32 home runs, 99 RBIs.

--Henderson, Red Sox hero in ‘86, Red Sox discard in ’87 and now back in the playoffs after his finest season yet. Had career highs in home runs, 24; RBIs, 94; and batting average, .304.

--Parker, who missed nearly 2 months because of a torn knee ligament and still managed to hit 12 home runs and get 55 RBIs.

--Lansford, a career .290 hitter and a member of this year’s American League All-Star team.

--Terry Steinbach, the most valuable player in this year’s All-Star game, who overcame a slow start to hit .265 and pick up 51 RBIs.

--Luis Polonia, a designated hitter in left fielder’s clothing who batted .295 and had 24 stolen bases in 84 games.

And, even though they removed second baseman Glenn Hubbard from the playoff roster Monday because of his nagging hamstring injury, the A’s also have shortstop Walt Weiss, bidding to become Oakland’s third consecutive rookie of the year, and a distinguished pinch-hitter named Don Baylor, another former Red Sox player making his third playoff appearance in as many seasons.

Pity Bruce Hurst. Tony LaRussa, the Oakland manager, does.

“It’s very tough,” LaRussa said. “With our lineup, it’s going to put tremendous pressure on Bruce Hurst, because he has to make quality pitches all the time . He can’t get away with anybody.

“Our lineup is our biggest asset. There are just so many tough outs.”

And how does the man staring down the gun barrel feel about things?

“They are not the only club in the American League that can beat you with one swing of the bat,” Hurst said without flinching. “I’ll just have to do what I set out to do every time I pitch--throw quality pitches.”

The fact that Hurst, and not Clemens, was starting for Boston in Game 1 became the major sub-plot during Tuesday’s rain-shortened workout at Fenway Park. Clemens won the league’s Cy Young Award in both 1986 and 1987 and won 18 games and the strikeout championship in 1988. He is Boston’s acclaimed No. 1 starter and, despite back and rib problems during the season’s second half, he bettered Hurst in earned-run average, 2.93 to 3.66.

Clemens is also right-handed, Hurst left-handed, with the majority of Oakland’s top hitters--Canseco, McGwire, Henderson, Lansford--swinging from the right side of the plate.

But when it came time to assemble his playoff rotation, Boston Manager Joe Morgan decided to hand the ball first to Hurst. Clemens is scheduled to start Game 2 Thursday night.

“Everything just kind of fell into place,” said Morgan, a what-me-worry? type. “Hurst pitches good here (he is 12-3 at Fenway this season) and pitches good day or night. Roger said he didn’t mind pitching the second game, so that’s how we went.”

By going that way, however, Morgan deprived these playoffs of one early drama: Clemens vs. Stewart, or Cy Young vs. Cy Young snub.

Stewart made headlines earlier this season by claiming that he deserved the 1987 Cy Young Award now in Clemens’ living room. A Game 1 pitch-off would have gotten the juices flowing, although Stewart has long since labored to defuse the controversy.

“That was something I said last year,” Stewart said. “That was then and this is now.

“I faced Roger once already this year and it was a good pitching match. Believe me, facing Bruce Hurst instead of Roger Clemens is no letdown. To me, they’re both great pitchers. The only difference is that Roger’s a power pitcher and Bruce uses finesse. They both get the job done.”

Stewart’s discretion was well advised, considering Hurst’s feelings on the subject.

“I don’t think I’m in Roger’s shadow,” Hurst said. “I respect Roger and he respects me. We’re in this together. What’s good for him is good for me.”

And what’s good for the Red Sox, today, is somehow restraining those imposing Oakland bats. Hurst is the man in Game 1, and if he can’t do it, maybe nobody can.

Fenway Park awaits. Its walls, so friendly to the Red Sox for so many seasons, are ready for perhaps their greatest challenge yet.