Will a Fast Start Last in the AL? : Angels, Orioles Hope to Hold Their Leads in the Second Half

One team began the 1988 season 0-21. The other ended it 0-12. Bad teams, man, and neither seemed headed for much improvement at the outset of April 1989.

Since then, they’ve played 3 1/2 months and an All-Star game . . . and the Angels and the Baltimore Orioles still lead their respective divisions. More than that, the Angels are doing it with the best record in baseball (52-33) while the Orioles, at 48-37, hold a 5 1/2-game edge over the rest of the American League East.

Are these July mirages, destined to vanish into sand as soon as the Oakland A’s get healthy and the Toronto Blue Jays get their act together?

Or can these turnarounds really be for real, with this weekend’s four-game series in Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium serving as a scouting report for October’s league championship series?

Seldom are such swift and complete reversals taken seriously--The Cubs will be fading soon again, won’t they?--but Chili Davis has seen it happen before and offers a short history lesson to illustrate how it might happen again.

“Anything can happen, man,” says Davis, the Angels’ home run leader with 11. “When I with the Giants, we had a team that lost 100 games in ‘85, came back to lead the division by the All-Star break in ’86 and nearly made the World Series in ’87.

“Look at the Twins. They were cellar dwellers for how long? They won it all in ’87 and won close to 200 the last two years.”

Uh, back to those ’86 Giants, Chili. What happened after the All-Star break? That year, Houston, not San Francisco, won the West in the National League.

“Injuries,” Davis said. “Injuries killed that Giant club, especially the pitching staff . . .

“But it can be done. A team can turn it around fast. It’s a matter of getting the right chemistry among the players and the right person to guide ‘em. You’ve got to have the right attitude, you’ve got to get rid of the selfishness.”

Davis stopped himself in mid-cliche, pausing for effect.

“And, of course,” he added, “a good pitching staff.”

Look no further than the AL team earned-run averages to find the foundation for the baseball resurgence in Anaheim and Baltimore. In 1988, the Angels and the Orioles finished 13th and 14th in the league in ERA, both over 4.30. In 1989, both clubs now rank among the top five, with the Angels’ 2.89 mark the best in the league.

Baltimore, at 3.81, is fifth.

Of course, the Angels and the Orioles have their own ideas about resuscitating a pitching staff. Strategic differences exist.

The Angels have relied predominantly on their starting rotation, receiving a total of 42 victories and 19 complete games from the quintet of Chuck Finley, Bert Blyleven, Kirk McCaskill, Jim Abbott and Mike Witt. The Orioles, meanwhile, have banked on Manager Frank Robinson’s all-comers bullpen, with relievers Gregg Olson, Mark Williamson, Kevin Hickey and Mark Thurmond averaging more than 30 appearances apiece.

The Baltimore rotation averages less than six innings per start per man and has produced just five complete games. Finley has nearly twice as many by himself with eight.

In Anaheim, bullpen closer Bryan Harvey complains about not getting enough work because of the Angels’ overly efficient rotation.

In Baltimore, Robinson can’t get his bullpen enough rest.

Yet, certain similarities are apparent. Both staffs have been revived, in part, by a trade, a rookie and an out-of-left field surprise.

The Trades: The Angels’ Bert Blyleven and the Orioles’ Brian Holton. One had exhausted his welcome in Minnesota, the other was mired in long relief with the Dodgers.

Acquired for the price of three minor leaguers, Blyleven, coming off a 10-17 season, has surpassed even his own expectations thus far. His 2.13 ERA leads the American League and at 8-2 with four complete games, he was a glaring oversight on Tony La Russa’s All-Star pitching corps.

Holton, who came to Baltimore in the Eddie Murray deal, was thrust into a starting role when Jose Bautista went down and has had decent success. In nine starts, he is 3-5, but with a 3.45 ERA.

The Rookies: The Angels’ Jim Abbott and the Orioles’ Gregg Olson. One is making history, the other never seems to make a mistake.

Through the first half, Abbott has been a more effective pitcher than Witt, the Angels’ opening day starter. With his outings monitored closely by Manager Doug Rader and pitching coach Marcel Lachemann--he has just one complete game and is usually removed at the first sign of late-inning trouble--Abbott is 8-5 with a 3.56 ERA. Those eight victories make Abbott the winningest rookie pitcher to have made the jump from college to the majors since the adoption of baseball’s free agent draft in 1965.

Baltimore’s Olson has been little short of perfect for 3 1/2 months. His record is 3-0, his ERA 1.89 and he’s 14 for 14 in save opportunities. If he doesn’t burn out from overuse--he’s already appeared in 35 games, pitching 48 innings--Olson figures to press Seattle’s Ken Griffey Jr. for the AL’s rookie of the year award.

Out of left field: The Angels’ Chuck Finley and the Orioles’ Jeff Ballard. One of them has gone from 9-15 to 10-6 and the All-Star game. The other went from 8-12 to 10-4 and should have been in Anaheim Tuesday night, too.

Finley’s forkball has been the pitch of the hour for the Angels in 1989. Since he developed it, Finley’s status as a starting pitcher has leaped from nondescript to one capable of striking out 15 batters in one game or pitching a one-hitter in Fenway Park. The Orioles know about the 15 strikeouts; last month in Anaheim, they were the ones doing the swinging and missing.

Ballard was the surprise of the American League through the end of May as he won nine of his first 10 decisions. He’s since been roughed up a little--1-3 in his last four decisions--but has shown recent signs of recovery, yielding just five runs in his last two outings. He was another no-show who belonged in this summer’s All-Star game.

Elsewhere, too, the Angels and the Orioles seem to have done their rebuilding along similar guidelines.

Some fundamental steps:

1) Hire managers who were busts in earlier assignments. Robinson, supposedly too heavy-handed in stops at Cleveland and San Francisco, and Rader, a washout in Texas, are now running 1-2 in the AL manager-of-the-year derby.

2) Raid the Phillies. Baltimore’s top hitter is ex-Phillie outfielder Phil Bradley, who’s batting .312 with 36 RBIs. The Angels’ second leading home run hitter is ex-Phillie catcher Lance Parrish, with 10 this season.

3) Do anything to improve your outfield defense. The Angels accomplished this by signing right fielder Claudell Washington for $2.6 million so they could move Davis to safer ground in left. The Orioles did the same by trading again with the Dodgers, bringing them slick center fielder Mike Devereaux, and then instituting a five-man outfield shuttle. Devereaux, Bradley, Joe Orsulak, Brady Anderson and Steve Finley all split time.

4) Take advantage of intradivisional strife. For the Angels, this has entailed winning as often as possible while Oakland has to play without Jose Canseco, Walt Weiss, Dennis Eckersley and Bob Welch. For the Orioles, this has meant capitalizing on Boston’s pitching problems, Milwaukee’s injury problems, Toronto’s motivational problems and New York’s Steinbrenner problem.

How long can it last? As the Angels learned all too well in 1987 and 1988, August and September can be cruel months. The rough on this back-nine is always the roughest.

But, for the time being, the last are first in the two divisions of the American League. Playoff preview? Probably not, but at least the next four days should be able to hold one’s interest.