McCaskill Fires Another Blank in Fenway Park

Fenway Park--land of the rising ERA, lair of the Green Monster, home to Boggs, Burks and Evans--has seldom seen anything like it:

Back-to-back shutouts.

By opposing starting pitchers.

By Angel starting pitchers.

And only five Boston hits in the process.

After the rain that followed Chuck Finley’s masterful one-hitter here on Friday night, Kirk McCaskill allowed the Red Sox all of four hits on Sunday afternoon. One Boston runner even ventured as far as third base.

But for the second consecutive game, none scored and McCaskill’s 3-0 victory completed one of the rarest of baseball parlays--a weekend in New England without a Red Sox run.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that,” said Angel catcher Lance Parrish, batterymate to both Finley and McCaskill. “This isn’t a place you usually come away from pitching shutouts.”

McCaskill knows. His lasting memories of pitching in Fenway were two dark days in October of 1986 spent dodging Red Sox bullets and losing a pair of playoff games that helped cost the Angels their first American League pennant.

McCaskill, then a 25-year-old coming off a 17-win regular season, lost Game 2, 9-2, and Game 6, 10-4. His playoff ERA was 7.71. The import of the moment had clearly overwhelmed him and, overshadowed by Donnie Moore and Doug DeCinces, he had been the Angels’ quiet anti-hero in that championship series.

“A battle,” is how McCaskill remembers that playoff experience. Under siege is probably a better description.

But three years and two career-threatening arm ailments later, McCaskill returned to the scene Sunday and claimed a measure of redemption. No World Series berth was on line this time--just a bit of McCaskill’s pride.

“A shutout anywhere makes you feel good but a shutout in Fenway is special,” McCaskill said.

McCaskill’s was the first by an opposing right-hander in 1989. Overall, his shutout was the fourth pitched this season against the Red Sox--but the third by an Angel pitcher. Already, Jim Abbott and Finley own 5-0 shutouts over Boston, with Abbott logging his in Anaheim on May 17.

You wonder what’s going on with the Angel pitching staff? So does the rest of the league. In 47 games, the Angels have recorded an AL-high 11 shutouts, more than twice as many as runner-up Oakland (five).

And that’s not counting the pseudo-shutout pitched by Mike Witt in Anaheim two weeks ago--a 6-1 victory over the New York Yankees that would have been 6-0 had Mike Pagliarulo’s solo home run down the left-field line been correctly waved foul.

Angel pitching hasn’t rallied during the past two months--it has been entirely resurrected.

“They’re making believers out of me,” said Parrish, shaking his head. “I knew they were capable of doing it, but it’s surprising to see the consistency. You’d think every once in a while, it might catch up to them.

“But when they get in a groove, like today, they simply stay with it. For me, it’s been fun.”

Through five innings, McCaskill’s shutout look suspiciously like Finley’s. The only Boston hit had been a bloop single to shallow center field, only this one was by Rich Gedman, coming in the third inning.

In the sixth, McCaskill yielded Boston’s first legitimate hit of the series, a line-drive single to right. In the seventh, Sam Horn, the slump-ridden designated hitter, ended an 0-for-26 drought with another single and Marty Barrett’s ninth-inning double accounted for the final Red Sox hit.

Barrett delivered his double while leading off the ninth, which immediately placed McCaskill’s shutout in jeopardy.

“In my mind, I was conceding the run,” McCaskill said. “Right there, the main thing was to make quality pitches and get the win.”

Barrett advanced as far as third base, moving there on an infield out. Then, McCaskill got Mike Greenwell to tap back to the mound on a check swing.

Finally, McCaskill struck out Dwight Evans for the game-ending out.

With it, McCaskill improved his record to 6-1 and lowered his league-leading ERA to 1.49.

Apparently, McCaskill has discovered a new way around Fenway. He was asked to explain it.

“The wind was blowing in, which helped out,” he said. “And I had three pitches working well for me--the sinker, the slider and the cut fastball.”

McCaskill then broke into a grin and his best Bostonian accent.

“And,” he added, “they didn’t hit any balls into the CAW-ner. “

For one afternoon, McCaskill had conquered Boston. Three years too late, some might say, but if we all knew then what we do now.

“I think I’m more mature,” McCaskill said. “I didn’t think I’d ever say that--I didn’t even know what maturity was back then. But I’m a different pitcher now.

“I don’t try to strike out guys as much. I go after them a little more. I’m not quite as fine.

“If that’s a definition of maturity, I don’t know. I still play with rubber ducks in the tub.”

McCaskill laughed, something of a new sensation for him at Fenway Park. But it was that kind of weekend for the Angels.

So far, it has been that kind of season.

Angel Notes

How rare are back-to-back shutouts pitched against the Red Sox--anywhere? In 29 years, the Angels have done it only one other time, on June 2 and 3, 1964, back when they were known as the Los Angeles Angels. Both games were played at Dodger Stadium. . . . The Angels needed little offense to make a loser of Boston starter John Dopson, who failed to last five innings. Dopson (5-3) contributed to his own demise--and the Angels’ first run--with his errant pickoff throw in the fourth inning, enabling Johnny Ray to move from first to second base, from where he scored on a single by Chili Davis. The Angels added two more runs in the fifth on run-scoring singles by Brian Downing and Devon White. For White, it marked his 30th RBI of the season.

Angel Manager Doug Rader, on his team’s 11th shutout and the state of his pitching staff in general: “Phenomenal. It’s fantastic to think they’ve thrown that many already. (Shutouts) are becoming more and more a trend around the league, but 11 of 31 (victories) is a little disproportionate. If we can keep that ratio up the entire year, it’d be incredible.” . . . Kirk McCaskill is on a 20-win pace, but his only goal this season, he reiterated for the benefit of the Boston media, is to finish this season. “I just want to stay healthy the whole year,” he said. “That’s still my goal. If I pitch a lot of innings, I’ll win some games.”