Joyner Fails to Clean Up; Orioles Do : He Leaves 7 Men on Base, Is Fined $100 in Angel Loss

The final score read Orioles 6, Angels 4, but the number that really rankled Wally Joyner Friday night can be found lower in the box score:

LOB--Angels 14.

As the cleanup hitter, Joyner is paid to clean the bases of Angel baserunners. When 14 of them are left stranded--seven personally by Joyner--the job is glaringly left undone, and a man’s patience can unravel in a hurry.

So it was with Joyner when, with the bases loaded and two out in the top of the eighth, plate umpire Jim Joyce called him out on a curveball that Joyner thought was too far inside to be deemed a strike.

Joyner, normally one who rides an even keel, nearly keeled over. Stomping away from the plate, he flung his bat and helmet into the air, and before they could hit the ground, Joyce had slapped him with a $100 fine.

That quickly became a conversation piece between Joyce and Joyner, and if Angel Manager Doug Rader hadn’t intervened, Joyner might have talked his way out of more money--as well as out of the game.

“He fined me for having too much altitude on my helmet,” Joyner grumbled afterward. “But it was in the heat of the game, with a questionable call, and it took us out of an inning. I’ll pay $100 for that.

“And,” Joyner added pointedly, “I’ll bet anybody $100 that that pitch was a ball, too.”

But by then, all bets were off. Joyner’s strikeout snuffed a bases-loaded threat, along with this season’s first chance to deprive Baltimore reliever Gregg Olson of a save. Olson, the Orioles’ near-perfect rookie, was 3-0 and 14 for 14 in save opportunities when he entered Friday’s game in the eighth inning with Jack Howell on first base and a 2-and-1 count on Dick Schofield.

Olson today is 15 for 15, but he had to get out of trouble twice before finishing the job.

After replacing Mark Williamson, Olson made two pitches to Schofield and four to the Angels’ next batter, Johnny Ray. All were balls.

With the bases loaded and one out, Olson misfired a seventh straight ball to Devon White.

But White, the impatient one, was the right man at the right time for Olson. White swung and missed on the next pitch before popping meekly to shortstop.

That brought up Joyner, already miffed by stranding two runners in both the third and fifth innings. Five pitches later, his mood would take a turn for the worse, and a batting helmet would become airborne.

“It was one of those night I wish I had back,” Joyner said. “I thought we outplayed those guys, but we couldn’t get the hit when we needed it. Or I couldn’t get it.

“That’s one of the reasons I was so frustrated. You get a couple of chances to tie the game and can’t get it done either time.”

Joyner wasn’t alone in his frustration. There was more than enough to go around in the Angel clubhouse, particularly for White and Kirk McCaskill.

White, like Joyner, left seven runners stranded. With two runners on base in the fifth inning, White popped up. With two more on base in the sixth, he fouled out. And with the bases loaded in the eighth, he let Olson get away unscathed.

McCaskill, the Angels’ starting pitcher, provided most of his team’s deficit by surrendering five runs in 2 2/3 innings. In the first, McCaskill gave up a single, committed a balk and threw a wild pitch but worked his way out of the predicament.

The second and third innings didn’t go quite as well.

The second inning saw McCaskill (9-6) issue two more walks, give up two more singles and throw another wild pitch as Baltimore scored three runs.

In the third inning, McCaskill gave up three more singles and walked another batter before Willie Fraser was summoned from the bullpen. Baltimore scored two more runs, and the Angels trailed, 5-1.

By the time McCaskill left, his earned-run average had risen to a season-high 3.14. He is 2-5 in his last seven starts, and after his latest loss, the Angels could only guess why.

Pitching coach Marcel Lachemann claimed that McCaskill experienced some “tightness” in his right elbow, around the scar tissue left from 1987 arthroscopic surgery, although McCaskill would neither confirm nor deny this.

“I’m sore about the way I pitched,” was all he would say.

Catcher Lance Parrish said McCaskill lost control of his curveball, which enabled Oriole hitters “to sit on his fastball.”

All Rader wanted to talk about was the bottom line. “And the bottom line,” Rader said, “is that, whether it takes extra work or whatever, he and Lach are going to do it, and the ship will be righted.

“People go into streaks, and whenever you have a lot of physical movement, like in a pitching motion, it’s almost a cinch that something’s going to go out of whack once in a while. Given (McCaskill’s) workload this year, that’s forgivable.”

As for that wasted eighth inning, well, let’s just say Joyner wasn’t in such a forgiving spirit.

“Nights like this happen to everybody,” Joyner said. “Unfortunately, the guy who hit fourth tonight didn’t get the hit when he needed it.”

And wound up $100 poorer, to boot.

Angel Notes

With the assistance of Kirk McCaskill, one Oriole streak was extended and another ended Friday night. The first batter McCaskill faced, Phil Bradley, singled to right field to extend his hitting streak to 16 games, the second longest in the major leagues this season. (Don Mattingly’s 17-game streak is the longest.) Then, the last batter McCaskill faced, Mike Devereaux, singled to center in the third inning to drive home two runs and snap a 1-for-23 spell. In between, McCaskill yielded four other hits, including a run-scoring single by Bradley in the second inning.

Claudell Washington, eligible to come off the disabled list Sunday, took batting practice Friday and declared himself ready to play. The Angel coaching staff, however, is playing it more cautiously. “He’s still got some soreness in the shin,” Manager Doug Rader said, “and we don’t know if that’s because of the ailment (cellulitis) or inactivity. He’ll be eligible Sunday, and then we’ll monitor it from there. He may be back Monday or Tuesday or when we get back home.”

Because of Monday’s rain-makeup doubleheader in Toronto, Dan Petry will make his second start of the season. Petry, relegated to long relief, hasn’t pitched since June 25. He won his only other start, on June 6, by pitching the first five innings in a 2-1 victory over Cleveland. The Angels’ other scheduled pitcher in the Toronto doubleheader? Jim Abbott, the rookie who bumped Petry from the Angels’ rotation in spring training.