Orioles Fence In Angel Comeback With 6-5 Victory

The Angels, who haven’t overcome much of anything lately, overcame a three-run Baltimore first inning, a fourth-inning home run by the Orioles’ Mike Devereaux, an uncommonly erratic outing by Jim Abbott and a 5-0 deficit Thursday night at Anaheim Stadium.

They still didn’t win.

Good enough to tie, another Angel comeback died on the vine when Baltimore pinch-hitter Jim Traber launched an eighth-inning pitch by Willie Fraser over the right-field fence, giving the Orioles a 6-5 victory and sending the Angels to their fourth consecutive defeat.

This was an especially discouraging turn of events for the Angels, who, 24 hours earlier, had forged a 1-1 tie with the Toronto Blue Jays on a ninth-inning home run by Brian Downing, only to delay defeat until the 14th inning, when the Blue Jays broke loose for a 6-1 triumph.

“It seems like every time we crawl over one hill,” Angel Manager Doug Rader said, “other hills keep cropping up.”

Thursday, the Angels were looking up from the outset, down by three runs before they took their first at-bats.

Abbott, pitching against the team he beat here on April 24 for his first major league victory, looked every bit the part of the nervous rookie. He hit the first batter, Devereaux, and walked the next two, Phil Bradley and Cal Ripken, to load the bases. No outs, national television audience watching, Abbott was hardly having the time of his life.

He gave up one run on an infield out by Randy Milligan. Two more scored on a single by Bob Melvin.

On one hit, the Orioles led, 3-0.

It would become 5-0 by the fourth inning. Melvin, Baltimore’s backup catcher, delivered his third RBI of the night with a third-inning single and Devereaux homered into the left-field seats for his third home run of the season an inning later.

Yet, by the bottom of the seventh, the game was tied, 5-5. The Angel offense, having scored but one run in its previous 17 innings, finally broke loose with two runs in the bottom of the fourth. A fifth-inning single by Kent Anderson brought home another, a sixth-inning single by Dick Schofield made it 5-4 and a seventh-inning double by Downing produced the tying run.

For a few flickering moments, the Angel comeback of the year appeared in the offing. All the signs were there, according to Greg Minton, the Angels’ veteran relief pitcher.

“We haven’t battled back from five runs down since I can’t remember when,” Minton said. “If you’d polled the team here, 90% of them thought we would win somehow. You always look for the one game that will get you turned around, get you started again--and I thought this was it.”

But then, Fraser began his fourth inning of relief. For the first three, Fraser had acquitted himself by yielding only one single, but with one out in the top of the eighth, he hung a full-count fastball to Traber.

Traber made it count in full. Landing high into the second deck, Traber’s fourth home run of the season would soon translate into the Angels’ fourth consecutive loss--and their 11th defeat in their last 14 games.

Rader described the rally-that-failed as “very admirable. The ingredients were all there . . . (But) the bottom line is that we’re competing against clubs who are playing very, very well right now. And when you give them three runs early, like we did, it doesn’t speak well of your chances of winning.”

The seeds of defeat were sown with the 0-2 pitch Abbott bounced off Devereaux’s foot in the first inning, at least in the mind of Abbott.

“That was the biggest pitch of the game,” Abbott said. “That set the tone for the rest of the game. You just can’t do that.

“It was a bad pitch. There’s no excuse for it. It probably cost us the game.”

Rader, who saw things differently, expressed concern that his rookie pitcher would see the situation in such a light.

“If he does think that, that’s not right,” Rader said. “In effect, that (a hit batter) is one run. One run in the first inning is not going to beat you. You can’t let that emotionally set the tone for you.

“That’s part of the education of a young pitcher. That’s something we will address with him.”

Flustered, Abbott came back to walk the next two batters he faced, placing himself in a predicament that quickly resulted in a 3-0 deficit.

A mountain had been made of a molehill . . . and an Angel rally was presented with one too many steps to climb.

The Angels had chances to tie again in eighth and ninth innings, but left runners stranded at third and second, respectively. In the eighth inning, with Jack Howell on third, pinch-hitter Johnny Ray grounded to second. And in the ninth, with Downing on second base after a two-out double, Chili Davis grounded to second.

As a consequence, Rader’s postgame session with the media was left to dissect another defeat.

“There are so many very, very nice things that could’ve been on everybody’s tongue,” Rader said. “The thing about losing tough ballgames, at least tough to me, is all the good things you do that tend to be forgotten. To the general public, it’s all black or white, win or lose.”

In baseball, points have yet to be awarded for effort or style.

Angel Notes

Johnny Ray was a late scratch from Doug Rader’s starting lineup after complaining of a sore big toe on his left foot. Ray was taken to St. Joseph Hospital in Orange for X-rays, which were negative, and Angel team physician Dr. Lewis Yocum diagnosed the injury as a sprain. Kent Anderson started in place of Ray and singled in four at-bats, driving in the Angels’ third run with a fifth-inning single. Rader used Ray as a pinch-hitter for Anderson in the eighth inning, with the tying run on third base and two outs. Ray ended the threat by grounding out.

Jim Abbott was certainly shaky, but neither he nor Rader would credit Thursday’s national televised broadcast as a reason. “I hope not,” Abbott said. “I didn’t think of it at all. I just couldn’t find my mechanics. I just couldn’t throw the ball over the plate tonight.” Added Rader: “(The broadcast) shouldn’t have bothered him. Last Saturday in Detroit, he was in a similar situation and he did all right. I just think it was another case of a guy trying to do too much to turn things around--like Kirk (McCaskill) did the other night. And with a relatively inexperienced kid, he doesn’t yet know how to do the extra things that can turn it around. That’s all a part of a kid’s development.”