Overlooked Angel Offense Steals the Spotlight, Beats Royals, 4-3

Much of the credit for the Angels’ success this season has gone to their pitching staff. And deservedly so.

After all, the starters are 27-14 with 13 complete games and five shutouts, and the relievers are 7-4 with 12 saves. As a result, the Angels have held opponents to two or fewer runs 25 times in 52 games. And they brought baseball’s best team earned-run average (2.71) into Saturday night’s game.

But when is the Angel offense going to get its due? Angel hitters have managed at least seven hits in each of the last 19 games and they have averaged more than 10 hits in that span.

Saturday night, the hit parade continued as the Angels collected 11 en route to a 4-3 victory over the Kansas City Royals in front of 50,640, the largest Angel crowd at Anaheim Stadium this year.

The victory kept the Angels percentage points ahead of the Oakland Athletics in the American League West. The Royals dropped to 3 1/2 games back.

“It would have been a different game if we had scored all the runs we could have, but that’s not the point,” Manager Doug Rader said. “The point is these guys hung in there and won it.”

The only time Kirk McCaskill beat the Royals before Saturday night, he had lasted 6 1/3 innings, given up 12 hits and somehow managed to escape with a 4-3 victory. On this evening, however, the Royals were facing a new, improved and supremely confident McCaskill, who leads the league in ERA at 1.69.

He wasn’t exactly overpowering and he made some mistakes, but McCaskill gave up only five hits and struck out five to improve to 7-1.

This one went down to the last batter, though.

Greg Minton came on to pitch the eighth for the Angels and retired the side in order. Things didn’t go quite as smoothly in the ninth, however.

Pat Tabler blooped a one-out single to right and then Danny Tartabull rolled a single into right and, all of sudden, the Royals had the tying run at third and the go-ahead run at first.

Rader decided to bring in left-hander Bob McClure to face left-hand hitting pinch-hitter Matt Winters. So Royal Manager John Wathan countered with right-hand hitting Mike Macfarlane.

Macfarlane worked the count to 3-2 before hitting a sharp grounder at shortstop Dick Schofield. The Angels turned a double play like the ones you practice in pregame warmups and McClure, who has given up only one hit in his last eight appearances, picked up his second save.

“I thought we were gonna pull it out at the end,” Wathan said. “It was a heckuva finish. Macfarlane hit it on the nose, but he hit it right at Schofield.”

McCaskill had thrown only 98 pitches, but Rader said he was obviously fatigued and was starting to get his pitches up.

“He just ran out of gas,” Rader said, “but McClure did the job again.”

The pitchers might have been in the spotlight again, but the Angels with the bats certainly upheld their part of the deal again. And they got started in a hurry.

The Angels had five hits--including three doubles--in the first two innings, but managed to score only one run.

“You get the feeling, ‘Oh my goodness, I hope we don’t need these runs later in the game,”’ Rader said. “These are not easy games to win, but we’re doing it.”

In the first inning, the Angels’ Devon White followed Johnny Ray’s one-out single with a double off the wall in right-center field. But Lance Parrish struck out and, after an intentional walk to Chili Davis, Wally Joyner flied to center.

The Angels took a 1-0 lead in the second when Dante Bichette led off with a double down the left-field line, took third on Schofield’s infield single and scored on Brian Downing’s double to left.

But Kansas City starter Charlie Leibrandt (3-6) got out of the inning without further damage when Ray grounded to first and Tabler stepped on the bag and fired to second behind Downing. Schofield then broke for home, but shortstop Kurt Stillwell’s throw was there in plenty of time and Schofield was out by 10 feet.

The Angels got three more hits in the third and this time they scored twice.

White singled and went all the way around to third on Leibrandt’s errant pickoff throw. After Davis walked, Joyner hit a sharp grounder that eluded Tabler and was ruled a run-scoring single. Bichette followed with a sacrifice fly to center to put the Angels ahead, 3-0.

The Royals got on the scoreboard in the fifth when Bill Buckner got all of a 2-0 pitch and his ensuing shot cleared the 362 sign in right field for his first homer since June 12, 1988, when he hit one in Anaheim Stadium--one month after the Angels had released him.

Kansas City tied the score in the sixth inning when McCaskill made an error of judgment that cost him as much as any fat fastball down the middle.

Stillwell grounded a one-out single to center and then Kevin Seitzer hit a bouncer up the middle that McCaskill attempted to field. The ball bounced off his glove to shortstop Schofield, who threw to second to force Stillwell. But had McCaskill let the ball go, it probably would have resulted in an inning-ending double play.

As it was, McCaskill walked Jackson and when White misplayed Tabler’s sinking line drive to center, both Seitzer and Jackson scored to make the score 3-3.

The Angels went back on top in the bottom of the inning, though, when Downing slugged a towering, two-out homer to left. Jackson, the Royals’ left fielder, jumped up on top of the railing in front of the seats next to the left-field foul pole and balanced there for a second or two, but the ball sailed well over his head.

“Downing has been an old nemesis of Charlie’s,” Wathan said. “He always seems to hit him.”

Downing, who has a career average of better than .500 against Leibrandt, said he was merely trying to get an extra base hit with two out, got a slider and got all of it.

“To me, playing Kansas City is just another game,” Downing said. “Our main rival is Oakland. We were just trying to get back on track after losing two in a row.”

Angel Notes

Outfielder Dante Bichette has had to adjust to a reserve role after starting 22 of the Angels’ first 35 games. He acknowledges that it hasn’t been easy. “It’s been tough,” said Bichette, who made his third start in the last 17 games Saturday night. “Every time I get in there, I have to try and make the most of it. I guess that attitude was working against me at first because I was putting so much pressure on myself. Now, I’m learning to relax, stay aggressive and do what I can do.” Bichette responded Saturday with a double and a sacrifice fly in his first two at-bats. . . . Bichette also said that after talking to a number of veteran players, he knows discovered that there is a great deal to be learned from sitting and watching. “You watch what good hitters and good pitchers do in certain situations,” he said. “I’m learning a different part of the game. I’m learning to see the game instead of just play it.”

Manager Doug Rader said that pitcher Jim Abbott, who will skip his next turn because of stiffness in his left shoulder, was feeling “much better” Saturday after his first day on anti-inflammatory medication. Abbott was as having tendinitis of the rotator cuff and will rest for a couple of days before engaging in some light throwing.