Angels Can’t Bounce Back Against Athletics : Oakland Takes 2-Game Lead With 8-3 Win Before 53,036

Kent Anderson, the Angels’ rookie shortstop, blamed it on “the clods.”

No, he wasn’t referring to the nine Angels on the field Saturday, although they certainly contributed to the Oakland Athletics’ 8-3 victory before a crowd of 53,036 at Anaheim Stadium.

No, Anderson was talking about those clumps of dirt on the left side of the infield, one of which helped trigger the Angels’ second loss in as many days to the new leaders of the American League West.

The game was still scoreless when a third-inning grounder by the Athletics’ Terry Steinbach struck a rough patch in the dirt in front of Anderson, catapulting the baseball from Anderson’s ankles to his nose in a blink of an eye.

It was a hellacious hop, leaving Anderson without a prayer of making the play. Over his head the ball sailed, bounding into left field while Carney Lansford scored from third base and Dave Henderson followed from second.

The Angels were suddenly down, 2-0, and the afternoon’s tone had been instantly established.

In the six-month scorebook of the 1989 season, put this game down as a bad-hop single.

“We won the struggle today,” said Oakland Manager Tony La Russa, stopping just short of apologizing for a victory that gave his team a two-game lead over the Angels. “That was a struggle out there--for both sides.”

For 3 1/2 hours, the Angels and A’s labored, sometimes against the heat, sometimes against the grass and soil, often against themselves.

So weary was the going that Jim Abbott, the Angels’ starting pitcher, lasted only three-plus innings before getting pulled from a 2-2 game by Manager Doug Rader.

Why?

Because, Rader said, it was the only humane thing to do.

“When you’re pitching under that kind of duress for three innings, it drains you emotionally and physically,” Rader said. “The effort involved in those first three innings took so much out of him, it served no purpose to keep him out there.”

Call it an exercise in stress management.

Angel nerves began to wrack in the second inning when left fielder Chili Davis misjudged a shallow fly ball hit by Dave Parker. Davis initially retreated on the ball before racing in to make up for lost time. The ball dropped in front of his glove and skipped past him for a double.

Momentarily shaken, Abbott walked the next two batters to load the bases.

It took a few calming words from Angel pitching coach Marcel Lachemann, a comeback grounder by Mike Gallego and a strikeout by Rickey Henderson to rescue Abbott without an Oakland run crossing the plate.

But Abbott had hardly caught his breath before conditions crumbled again in the third. Lansford pinged a leadoff grounder off the glove of diving Jack Howell, the Angels’ third baseman, for an infield single. Dave Henderson blooped a double over first baseman Wally Joyner’s head. And both runners scored when Steinbach’s one-out bouncer to shortstop exploded on Anderson.

One out later, Howell misplayed a grounder by Tony Phillips for an error and Ron Hassey singled off the glove of second baseman Johnny Ray and the bases were loaded once more.

Finally, Abbott quelled the threat by retiring the eighth hitter of the inning, Gallego, on a force play.

“Did the kid catch a break in three innings?” Rader said. “(The A’s) put six hits on the board, and I couldn’t remember any of them.”

When Abbott opened the fourth inning by walking Rickey Henderson and Lansford, Rader finally interceded and brought on reliever Dan Petry. Again, Abbott couldn’t catch a break. Petry walked the first two men he faced to force in one run, and yielded a sacrifice fly to Parker to score another.

The A’s led, 4-2 . . . with all four runs charged to Abbott (10-8).

The Angels would score another run in the fifth inning on a walk by Claudell Washington and a double by Johnny Ray, but would also strand seven runners against Oakland pitchers Bob Welch (12-7) and Todd Burns.

Worse still, they were flimflammed out of the fourth inning by A’s second baseman Phillips, who turned an infield pop fly by Howell into a inning-ending double play.

Here’s how:

With Davis on first base with one out, Welch jammed Howell on an inside pitch, resulting in a rapidly dying pop-up to the right side of the infield. Both Davis and Howell figured the ball would be caught, but Phillips let it drop and then flipped to second to set an apparent double play in motion.

This, however, was not readily apparent to Davis or Howell. Davis remained standing on first base and Howell stopped running. Once the ball hit the ground, Howell resumed his sprint--but not quickly enough to beat shortstop Gallego’s throw to first.

Rader was less than pleased.

“It was an outstanding play on Phillips’ part and a very negligent play on Jack Howell’s part,” he said. “We will address it.”

The play loomed significantly until the eighth inning, when Angel reliever Greg Minton replaced Petry and turned a 4-3 Oakland advantage into an 8-3 runaway. Minton pitched to four batters, and the first three resulted in runs.

Lansford had a run-scoring ground out. Dave Henderson had a run-scoring single. And Mark McGwire drove in the two final runs with a home run, his 21st of the season and the third Minton has allowed in his last two innings of work.

This from the same pitcher who, before this week, had allowed just two home runs during the last two seasons.

“Unfortunately, Greg’s in one of those things that everybody who’s ever played the game has gone through,” Rader said. “We’ll weather the storm.”

That, for the moment, reigns as the Angel battle cry. The clouds, however, have yet to break. If the Angels are to avoid a three-game sweep today, they will have to find a way to weather Oakland’s Dave Stewart, the winningest pitcher in the American League.

Angel Notes

Saturday’s game was as pitted and pock-marked as the Anaheim Stadium infield, which, according to several Angel infielders, was pretty bad. “It’s all chewed up and clodded up,” said shortstop Kent Anderson, nearly beaned by a bad-hop single by Terry Steinbach. “The ball hit one of those clods and kicked up so bad, I couldn’t even get in front of it to see it.” Added third baseman Jack Howell: “We’ve known all year that this is a tough infield to play on. The infield is hard, and there’s a different kind of grass. Day games make it especially tough. They water the infield and 20 minutes later, it’s bone-dry again. And today, with no wind or cool breeze and a hot sun, it was probably a little harder than usual.”

Howell was asked about the pop fly-turned double play he hit at Oakland second baseman Tony Phillips in the fourth inning. “I got jammed and had no idea where the ball went,” Howell said. “It could have been foul, for all I knew. I started to run, but when I saw Phillips under it I gave up. I had a feeling he might do that (let the ball drop) and that’s when I took off. But by then, it was too late.” Chili Davis never left first base on the play and afterward, had to ask umpire Tim McClelland if Phillips’ little deke was indeed legal. “I asked McClelland, ‘Tim, can he do that?’ ” Davis said. “And he said, ‘Yeah, the only time you can call the infield fly rule is when there are runners on first and second. And (Phillips) let the ball hit the ground before hitting his glove, which is also allowed. But I couldn’t do anything. I had to hope Jack would beat it out.”

Jim Abbott admitted he was exhausted when Angel Manager Doug Rader decided to replace him with two runners on base and no outs in the fourth inning. “I’m not going to apologize for being tired in the fourth inning,” Abbott said. “I’d battled as hard as I could, and I just couldn’t get the ball over the plate anymore.” Abbott said he was “not crying” over the bevy of bad hops and misplayed balls that vexed him Saturday, but he conceded such things make pitching tougher. “Sure,” he said. “It’s as tough to take as a double off the wall. It all contributes. But I’m sure it’s just as tough on infielders when they see their pitcher walk people.”