Rader Has Seen It All Before; Angels Lose

For the first time since 1985, Doug Rader managed a baseball team in Arlington Stadium Monday night. Leave it to the Angels to make him feel at home.

Wobbly pitching, shoddy defense, inexplicable baserunning, no offense--this was Texas Ranger baseball as Rader knew it during the final days of his first trial as a big-league manager. And during the Angels’ 4-0 loss to the Rangers, all of it was in clear view again, only this time Rader had to endure it from a seat on the visitors’ bench.

Mike Witt, who once threw a perfect game against Rader’s Rangers, labored through an imperfect six innings Monday, surrendering four runs on six hits, including a home run that was the 16th he allowed this year.

Devon White and Claudell Washington couldn’t come to grips with a wet and wild outfield, slipping and sliding and misplaying a pair of balls that led to three Texas runs.

Wally Joyner forgot to tag up on a Lance Parrish drive of sacrifice fly distance and wound up retreating meekly to third base, costing the Angels a chance to take a 1-0 lead.

And ultimately, there was Mike Jeffcoat, the 29-year-old Texas pitcher who began the season at Oklahoma City. He took a 5.00 earned-run average into this start and left with a five-hitter and the first major league shutout of his career.

For Rader, the only thing missing from such familiar surroundings was an explosion of temper, which characterized his tumultuous reign in Texas. Five-game losing streaks, such as the one presently burdening the Angels, used to turn Rader’s face red and his language purple, but that’s a Texas trait, Rader insists, that won’t be making a comeback.

“You ought not to be concerned with me,” Rader said. “I’m not going to be an issue. We’ve just got to get our hitting back and get that feeling back.”

That winning feeling hasn’t been experienced by the Angels since last Tuesday, when they edged the Cleveland Indians in Anaheim, 2-1. Since then, the Angels have been swept in Kansas City and shut out twice. And Monday, the Angels dropped to third place, a half game behind the second-place Royals.

Cleveland’s Greg Swindell got them once. Rader can live with that. But Jeffcoat is not exactly Nolan Ryan and Arlington Stadium, at least in Rader’s memory, is supposed to be a hitter’s ballpark.

“You can’t come in here and get shut out,” Rader said. “That’s pretty indicative of how we’re going.

“We’re not hitting the ball out of the ballpark and our offense is a little stagnant. And it may be an afterthought, but of these five losses, four of them have been against left-handers. The only thing that worries me about that is that it might become a trend.”

Rader has enough trends to worry about, a couple of them figuring heavily into this defeat: Witt’s continued struggles on the mound and rookie Dante Bichette’s continued daze at the plate.

Witt saw his record drop to 3-7 after losing his fourth consecutive decision. In his last nine starts, Witt is 1-5. And after usually contending for the league lead in such things in wins and complete games, Witt now leads the major leagues in home runs and is third in the American League in both earned runs allowed (48) and hits allowed (104).

Bichette, the pleasant power-hitting surprise of Rader’s first Angel spring, started in left field Monday, went 0 for 4 and saw his batting average drop to .198.

Rader’s assessment of these situations?

“I thought, overall, (Witt) threw very well tonight,” Rader said. “I thought he made progress and I talked to (catcher) Lance Parrish and Lance said he threw much better.

“The only rap against him would be that he didn’t throw enough strikes. But his velocity was much better than last time and his control was much better.”

Bichette, meanwhile, drew a harsher critique from his manager. Bichette’s second-inning popup with runners on second and third and none out drew an uncommonly sharp review from the newer, milder Rader.

“That whole inning was set up by Dante not doing something efficient there,” Rader said. “Runners on second and third and he makes an out like that. The whole inning was set up by the relatively poor at-bat Dante had.”

And later: “I think Dante’s a little lost right now. He doesn’t have the handle on things he had earlier.

“Deron (Johnson, Angel batting coach) has been working with him and he’ll keep working with him, but Dante’s continually being caught in-between at the plate now.”

After Bichette popped to second base for the first out of the inning, Parrish drove a ball into the gap in right-center field. Joyner, standing on third base, wandered down the line and watched the flight of the ball from there, including right fielder Ruben Sierra’s running catch.

Had he stayed at third base, Joyner could have tagged up and, in probability, scored. Instead, he wound up stranded at third when Jack Howell closed the inning by grounding out to second base.

“I froze,” Joyner said. “I was caught in no man’s land and just couldn’t get back to the bag (to tag up) in time.”

Said Rader: “Wally may or may not have scored on that. Sierra’s got an excellent arm. . . . Don’t pin this one on Wally, though. Don’t put this on his back.”

There were other backs worthy of targeting, such as White’s and Washington’s. White was handcuffed on a dying fly ball by Cecil Espy, letting the ball kick off his glove for a third-inning double. Espy and Rafael Palmeiro would both score when Sierra singled to right and Washington bobbled the slippery ball long enough for an error.

“The whole game boiled down to Devon overrunning that ball on a difficult outfield,” Rader said. “That ball falls and it leads to three runs. Three runs later, that was the ballgame.”

So the rain that fell this weekend in Arlington was also a factor. And it could be again--there’s a 40% chance of rain here today.

Then again, if the Angels stay dry, there’s a 100% chance they will face Ryan.

If you’re an Angel, you’re probably praying for rain today.

Angel Notes

Doug Rader’s new set lineup didn’t make it to Arlington. Monday, Rader had to take the liquid paper to his lineup card, whiting out the name of left fielder Chili Davis and replacing it with that of Dante Bichette. Davis sprained his left wrist while running into the wall to make a catch Sunday afternoon in Kansas City, an injury that necessitated X-rays once the team arrived in Texas. “We thought he just jammed it a little bit,” Rader said, “but as the day progressed, it started to get stiff and sore.” X-rays proved negative, but Davis could be sidelined at least through the remainder of the Texas series. Bichette didn’t provide much relief as a replacement, going hitless in four at-bats to extend his current slump to 5 for 37.

By surrendering a sixth-inning home run to Julio Franco, Mike Witt passed Cincinnati’s Tom Browning for the major league lead in home runs allowed (16) and enabled Franco to become the first Texas second baseman to hit as many as 10 home runs in a season. The previous Ranger record was nine, shared by Bump Wills and Toby Harrah. . . . Devon White, on the running catch he failed to make on Ruben Sierra’s sinking fly ball in the third inning: “It was twilight and I didn’t see it (well). I had a good jump but I didn’t have a good read on the ball.” White called the outfield conditions “terrible.” “On a dry field, I imagine I would have (caught it),” he said. . . . The shutout was the seventh to be pitched against the Angels in 1989, an American League high.