Hey! Heads Up, You Angels! Don’t Lose a Season in the Sun

In the first place, the Angels no longer are in first place. No matter what happens at Anaheim Stadium today, the Oakland Athletics are going to leave town ahead of the Angels in the standings. And they just might stay there.

The A’s are like baseballs hit to Chili Davis--you aren’t sure if they’re going to be caught. These guys have a score to settle, a losing score. They went to the World Series a year ago, only to run into Orel and Mickey and Kirk and those other characters. They want to go back, give a better account of themselves, and among the people standing in their way are the Angels.

Even without the famous batman, Jose Canseco, the Athletics have done some serious Angel-bashing over the past two days in Anaheim, a couple of five-run runaways including Saturday’s 8-3 decision.

Another similar outcome today and the Angels will find themselves three lengths back, with no games left against the A’s thereafter.

“Be sort of nice if these were the last three games of the season,” was the wishful thinking of Oakland slugger Mark McGwire, who homered and also walked with the bases loaded Saturday.

The Athletics clearly are the boys to beat now, the reigning American League champions who are rounding into 1988 form, just at the right time. The Angels are going to have to play heads-up ball just to stay close, and Saturday they definitely played heads-down.

How many games will a team need to win the American League West? Hard telling. Depends on how soon the Angels pull out of this little fishtail of theirs. The A’s wouldn’t mind beating them again today, because every game counts, and because baseball people are trained to believe that no lead is safe.

“High in the 90s,” Oakland Manager Tony La Russa said, speculating on the number of victories it will take to take the division. “Maybe in the 100s. That’s why it’s important to stay hungry. We’ve got a day off Monday, so let’s let it all hang out.”

The A’s want to get going now, while the going is good.

The Angels? Things are not, at the moment, all that good.

Bad hitting, bad hustle, bad hops. Somebody had better remind the Angels that while some ballclubs need all they help they can get, the Athletics do not. Against the A’s, it is wise to swing at every fat pitch, run out every pop fly, hurl yourself in front of every grounder. Play as though these are the playoffs. The A’s are too good to beat when you are going bad.

One hundred fourteen thousand, seven hundred and thirty-two people already have popped into the Big A over a two-day span to catch the Angels-A’s act. What they have seen is the home team at its worst. What they are hoping is that things will take a turn for the better, before the A’s can run away and hide.

The Angels hardly needed to lose shortstop Dick Schofield and designated hitter Brian Downing with injuries at this late date. Bad timing and bad luck.

The hits have stopped dropping. The Angels have had runners cross home plate in only two of their last 24 innings. They have hit one home run in eight days.

It doesn’t help the offense any when Tony Armas check-swings twice with the bases loaded, on strike two and strike three, or when Jack Howell jogs from home plate on an infield fly that the Oakland second baseman deliberately drops, turning it into a double play.

By the time Howell started running full out, the A’s had turned the relay. It was a close call at first base, and Howell might even have beaten the throw, but umpire Joe Brinkman called him out--an embarrassing 4-6-3 if ever there were one.

“He was safe,” television analyst Tom Seaver said after watching the replay, “but I think Joe Brinkman punched out Jack Howell on general principles, for lack of hustle.”

The Angels can play better than this. They have played better than this, all season long.

This is not the time to wait and see what happens. This is the time to throw yourself on the grenade.

Take that killer play Saturday, when a ground ball by Oakland’s Terry Steinbach took a hop on Angel shortstop Kent Anderson like no hop you have ever seen, right over his shoulder and into the outfield, a two-run single. That ball couldn’t have just hit a pebble to hop like that. Must have hit a sprinkler head or a gopher’s head or something.

Even so, Anderson probably feels awful about not at least getting a glove on that ball. Because on such plays, pennant races can turn.

The Angels concede nothing. They know they are still very much in this thing.

They just have to keep hustling, before they get punched out on general principles.