A Quarterly Report With Fascinating Numbers

Baseball hit the quarter pole on Sunday. By then, every club but the Baltimore Orioles had played its 40th game, the unofficial, if inexact, mark of one-fourth of the season. The formula to figure out what the rest of the year might be like is easy: just multiply the statistics by four.

Of course, the formula is mostly for fun, not for accurate predictions. For instance, New York Mets’ catcher Gary Carter, who hit eight homers through May 16 last year, was on a pace to hit 32 home runs. He hit 11.

But what the formula does offer is some perspective on what teams and players have accomplished over the first 40 games. Want to get an idea of just how hot San Francisco Giants’ outfielder Kevin Mitchell is? Just multiply his numbers by four. Wonder just how bad the American League East really is? Multiply the teams’ records by four.

Here are some of the more interesting forecasts derived from this year’s quarterly report, based on performances through Sunday:

--Don Mattingly of the New York Yankees bats 620 times without a home run.

--The Orioles’ Jeff Ballard, who started the season with a 10-20 lifetime record, goes 28-4.

--Wade Boggs of the Boston Red Sox doesn’t get 200 hits for the first time in seven seasons, finishing with 172.

--Jack Morris of the Detroit Tigers goes 8-24.

--Lee Guetterman pitches 118 2/3 innings for the Yankees without allowing a run.

--Julio Franco, who’s never hit more than 10 homers in a season, puts up huge numbers: 28 homers, 140 runs batted in and a .313 batting average.

--If Franco of the Texas Rangers isn’t the American League MVP, then Kansas City’s Bo Jackson is. Jackson joins Jose Canseco in the 40-40 club (40 homers, 56 steals). By the way, Bo whiffs 180 times, too.

--Wally Joyner’s home run totals for the Angels drop from 34 in 1987, to 13 in 1988 and to four in 1989.

--The Angels’ Kirk McCaskill and Chuck Finley, whose combined record was 17-21 last year, improve to 44-12.

--Dennis Eckersley’s 56 saves for the A’s are a record.

--Rangers shortstop Scott Fletcher, who got his hands on a huge contract last winter, can’t hold onto much else. He finishes with 36 errors.

--No doubt about the National League MVP. It’s Mitchell, who hits .317 with 56 homers and 168 RBIs.

--Mitchell’s teammate, Will Clark, wipes out his previous career high of 163 hits with a whopping 232.

--Lonnie Smith of the Atlanta Braves is comeback player of the year, hitting .324 with 120 runs.

--Mets’ pitcher Dwight Gooden recaptures the Cy Young Award with a season reminiscent of 1985: 24-4, 232 strikeouts and a 2.17 earned-run average.

--The Cleveland Indians win the American League East with a 79-83 record.

If you asked just about anyone before this season to name the best left-handed pitcher in the AL, you’d probably get one of three answers: Frank Viola of the Minnesota Twins, Seattle’s Mark Langston or Milwaukee’s Ted Higuera. Those three pitchers were a combined 55-27 last year.

But look what’s happened to them this year. Viola, Langston and Higuera don’t have as many wins among them as Jeff Ballard has by himself. The big three are 6-13.

Meanwhile, Ballard, Chuck Finley and Floyd Bannister--all of whom had losing records last year and were 29-40 combined--are 17-3.

Except for Jerry Reuss, every pitcher on the Chicago White Sox staff this past weekend was no older than 29. The average age of those nine pitchers was 25.2 years old. But General Manager Larry Himes figured youth and inexperience were no excuses for what has been the worst pitching staff in the majors. Himes said on a radio show after a 9-3 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays that eight of his 10 pitchers were worthy of the minor leagues, excusing only Eric King and Bobby Thigpen.

“I’m getting ready to wave goodby to some of these guys,” Himes said. “It’s like driving a car with four blowouts. I’m fed up and disgusted.”

Himes made his comments after a one-hour meeting with Manager Jeff Torborg in which they decided to demote Ken Patterson and Jose Segura and call up Jeff Bittiger and Jack Hardy. They will be the 13th and 14th pitchers to appear for the White Sox this year.

For Segura, it was the end of a long weekend. He was with Vancouver, Chicago’s triple-A club, on Wednesday. On Thursday, he pitched in Chicago for the White Sox in an exhibition game against the Chicago Cubs. He was sent back to Vancouver after the game. On Friday, he was recalled when the White Sox put Donn Pall on the disabled list. On Saturday, he allowed five runs in two-thirds of an inning. On Sunday, he allowed three runs in one inning. Then he was shipped back to Vancouver with a 43.20 ERA.

It rained so hard Monday evening in Cincinnati that it appeared that the Reds and St. Louis Cardinals would be unable to play. But Reds’ management waited two hours past the scheduled 7:30 game time and ordered the game to begin. Two innings later, the umpires ordered the field covered. An hour and 15 minutes after that, at 11:25 p.m., they called it.

Cardinals’ starting pitcher Joe Magrane, who put up with two innings of the rain and mud, decided Reds’ owner Marge Schott was to blame for even thinking that the game could be played.

“I’ve heard the phenomenon before of the master taking on the appearance of the dog,” Magrane said, referring to Schott and her dog, Schottzie. “That’s already been established. But I never heard it went as far as the master taking on the thinking process of the dog.”