Angel Notebook : Rader Rates Petry’s Outing as Day’s Only Plus

Dan Petry stepped inside to escape the blistering sun, wiped some sweat from his brow and cast a longing eye toward the cold soft drink Kirk McCaskill was nursing by his locker stall.

“It’d sure be nice to have one of those root beers,” Petry told McCaskill.

McCaskill waved him off, dangling the can in front of Petry.

“This is only for a bad outing, Dan,” he said. “This is consoling stuff.”

Friday afternoon, Petry followed McCaskill to the pitcher’s mound for the Angels, but only chronologically. McCaskill surrendered four runs on four hits and two walks in three innings before retiring to the comfort of a solitary root beer.

Petry, in his first appearance of the spring, allowed only one run and one hit in three innings.

It was a good outing, and a painless outing, which was major news as far as Petry is concerned.

He was plagued with back and ankle ailments through last season, and Petry had begun this spring with a stiff right shoulder. The official diagnosis was a strain of the posterior rotator cuff, which sounds like the beginning of something scary, and Petry was advised to delay his first outing for five days.

Tentatively, he was sent to the mound against the Cleveland Indians at Hi Corbett Field. Not so tentatively, he struck out two of the first three hitters he faced, allowed a run on a single, two stolen bases and a sacrifice fly, and then retired the last six batters he faced.

That one run resulted in Petry being charged with the loss--typical Petry, loser of two 1-0 games in 1988--as the Indians went on to defeat the Angels, 8-4.

But Petry didn’t really mind.

“Those are a little better results than my first five outings last spring,” said Petry, whose 1988 Angel camp was marred by a herniated disk. “I had a 19.00 ERA or something.

” . . . For the first time out, this was pretty good for me. I don’t think you’re ever happy. There are still some bugs to work out, but that’s what spring training is for, isn’t it?”

Petry said he had no trouble with the shoulder.

“I think it’ll be fine, aside from a little stiffness tomorrow,” he said. “It’s not going to hurt, because it’s not hurt. It’s just a little tired, that’s what it felt like. Or like a knot. The trainers can’t find one, but it feels like a knot back there.”

Angel Manager Doug Rader called Petry’s outing “the only real plus of the day” but cut his superlatives short, pending Petry’s recovery from the three-inning stint.

“This was encouraging,” Rader said. “But at the same time, the problem will only be rectified if he can crank it up the next time out.”

Petry is scheduled to pitch again Tuesday. He said he plans on keeping the appointment.

Don Baylor and Reggie Jackson, Angel designated hitters of yesteryear, are reportedly among the candidates Angel Vice President Mike Port is considering to fill the club’s newly created role of assistant general manager.

Port and Baylor discussed the position last winter, but Baylor, holding out hope of catching on and playing with another team this season, said he wasn’t interested. The Angels, however, apparently still are and have asked Bob Watson, assistant general manager of the Houston Astros, to ask Baylor, a friend, if he might reconsider.

Jackson, in Phoenix as a spring instructor with the Oakland Athletics, says he has also discussed the position with Port. Jackson owns four car dealerships and plans to market a brand of car wax, but says he would push those to the back burner if the job were offered.

“For an assistant general manager job, I might have to put some things aside,” Jackson told reporters. “That would be a plum.”

Jackson said he expected to talk to Port “probably this weekend,” after Port and owner Gene Autry return from the baseball owners meetings in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.