Baseball : 5,000 (Strikeouts) Is One Number That Impresses Ryan

What is the most impressive facet of Nolan Ryan’s performance at 42?

--That American League hitters are batting .193 against him and he has already won 14 games, more than he totaled in 12 of 21 previous seasons?

--That he has taken four no-hitters into the eighth inning?

More than that, consider that, with 219 strikeouts in 175 1/3 innings, Ryan is averaging 11.3 per nine innings. His average in 1973, when he set a single-season record of 383, was only 10.6.

His 1989 pace has moved Ryan within six strikeouts of becoming the first pitcher to register 5,000. He will go after it Tuesday night in Texas against the Oakland Athletics--and figures to get it. Ryan has struck out six or more batters in 18 consecutive starts and 22 of 24 this year.

Generally low key and impassive in response to the accomplishments of his illustrious career, Ryan is excited at the prospect of 5,000.

“It has become a goal because that’s the style of pitcher I am, and no one has ever reached that plateau,” he said.

“Only a handful even reached 3,000, but the next 2,000 are completely different because of the stage of life and the physical demands on you. To be able to go out and throw every fifth day controls your whole life.”

Ryan mentioned the need for proper diet, conditioning and rest.

“I don’t think I’m any better prepared than I used to be; it just takes longer for the preparation,” he said.

The Angels’ Claudell Washington, who has had the misfortune to follow Ryan from the American League to the National League and back to the American, is No. 1 on his whiff list, having struck out 36 times. Next are Fred Patek at 31, Jorge Orta at 30 and Larry Hisle and Rod Carew at 29 each.

Ryan has struck out 17 members of the Hall of Fame and six father-son combinations: Bobby and Barry Bonds, Tito and Terry Francona, Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr., Dick Schofield Sr. and Jr., Maury and Bump Wills, and Sandy and Roberto Alomar.

He has also struck out 10 sets of brothers: Felipe, Matty and Jesus Alou; George and Ken Brett, Ollie and Oscar Brown, Hector and Jose Cruz, Tony and Chris Gwynn, Lee and Carlos May, Eddie and Rich Murray, Graig and Jim Nettles, Cal and Billy Ripken, and Phil and Joe Niekro.

Is it all relative? Hardly. Tuesday night will be special, as indicated by the earliest sellout in Ranger history.

Ryan drew within six of 5,000 by striking out eight in Seattle Wednesday night, prompting a stampede on the Texas ticket windows Thursday morning, when the Rangers sold their final 10,200 seats for Tuesday night in five hours.

The owners’ Player Relations Committee, which will propose a major economic revision when collective bargaining negotiations begin at the end of the season, has already discarded two options.

“There will be no attempt to impose a salary cap or to emasculate free agency,” one insider said.

What does that leave?

“We’re looking seriously at some sort of partnership or revenue-sharing plan that would include the union,” he said.

The details?

“Too early to get into it,” he said. “Nothing is firm.”

Commissioner Bart Giamatti has portrayed himself as a traditionalist, favoring day games, grass fields, etc. But the seven games of the 1989 World Series are all scheduled for prime time again, with ABC, having the final word and in the final year of its contract, interested in nothing but the ratings.

Did the alleged traditionalist have an impact on the new contract with CBS that he and predecessor Peter Ueberroth helped negotiate?

Apparently not. The four-year deal calls for all World Series games to be played at night, with only the network being able to change it.

The New York Mets, in second place in the National League East, are looking forward to home and home series they have remaining with the division-leading Chicago Cubs.

“That’s what baseball is all about,” Met Manager Dave Johnson said. “A head-to-head series in September with the leaders. You don’t have to worry about watching the scoreboard. That’s the way it should be decided.”

But not in the 14-team American League, where teams play 84 games outside their division and 78 within.

The Angels, for example, play more games against the East in September, 14, than against the West, 12, and do not even play the Athletics again.

With seven teams in a division, it is impossible to devise a balanced schedule or a schedule that would have every team playing strictly an intra-division slate in September, but the league could get closer than it does now if it weren’t for a problem bigger than the mathematics.

Call it greed.

Consider:

--The Western teams have always been reluctant to give up lucrative dates against the East. The New York Yankees, Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox remain bigger draws in Anaheim than any team in the West except Oakland, which became a draw last year.

--The Eastern teams, league President Bobby Brown said, consistently complain that they face a significant drop in attendance when schools reopen after Labor Day. Thus, they want to play as many games as possible with their traditional Eastern rivals before then, which shoves a large number of inter-division games with the West into September.

“No matter how we do it we get complaints,” Brown said.

The only answer is less greed or expansion to eight-team divisions. Otherwise, Brown said, the league will probably have to stay with the current concept.

“Every year we look at what we call a modified unbalanced schedule in which teams would play 90 games within their division and 72 outside of it,” he said.

“But when you try to correlate it (in two-team cities) with the National League and the travel restrictions in the collective agreement, you end up with an inordinate number of what we call squeeze weeks , where you’re playing every day. There are no provisions for rain-outs, so you have to balance it with doubleheaders. Then you have everybody complaining again.

“As for the Angels this year, it’s just by the luck of the draw that they’re playing other teams in the division the last two weeks instead of the A’s.”

According to first baseman Keith Hernandez, the Mets began a weekend series against the Dodgers with a feeling that their vaunted but previously inconsistent pitching was again becoming “electrified,” that “if we score three runs we’ll win.”

Nevertheless, the return of right-hander Dwight Gooden from his shoulder injury seems to be imperative. The Mets’ rotation includes three left-handers--Frank Viola, Bob Ojeda and Sid Fernandez--and both the Cubs and Montreal Expos have beaten up on lefties.

The Cubs are 30-10 against left-handers and 41-42 against right-handers. The Expos ar 24-13 against left-handers and 44-41 against right-handers. Gooden has a record of 27-8 against those teams, including 5-1 this year.

Then again, the Cubs have reached the point where it doesn’t seem to matter who’s pitching. They can no longer be considered a fluke.

They are 71-52 overall, 24-13 since the All-Star break, 24-12 on artificial turf, 36-24 in night games and 37-27 on the road. They were the only National League team with nine batters having 30 or more runs batted in.

“If I was a dancer, I’d dance down Michigan Avenue,” Manager Don Zimmer said. “We’re into a good thing right now. We’re catching every break we can catch. A club couldn’t be any more confident than this club is.”

The San Francisco Giants’ Kevin Mitchell and Will Clark started a weekend series in Philadelphia with a total of 58 homers and 192 runs batted in and a chance to produce the National League’s highest total since Johnny Bench and Tony Perez had 85 homers and 277 RBIs for the Cincinnati Reds in 1970.

The debate over whether Mitchell or Clark should be the league’s most valuable player has already started, with center fielder Brett Butler putting it this way:

“Will Clark is a great player. Kevin Mitchell is a good player having a great year. Will Clark is going to the Hall of Fame, but this is Kevin’s year. It’s like Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in 1961. Mantle is a Hall of Famer, but that was Maris’ year.”

One category:

Mitchell was batting .317 with runners in scoring position through Thursday and had driven in 57, or 54%, of his 105 RBIs with runners in scoring position. Clark was batting .413 with runners in scoring position and had driven in 66, or 76%, of his 87 RBIs with runners in scoring position.

The Milwaukee Brewers were furious at the rolling block Yankee rookie Marcus Lawton threw at second baseman Jim Gantner Tuesday night, tearing ligaments in Gantner’s left knee.

Gantner, who had hit .331 since the All-Star break and stolen 20 bases to match his career high and help drive the Brewers back into the AL East race, had surgery Wednesday and, at 35, may never play again.

“We can’t replace him statistically or emotionally,” Manager Tom Trebelhorn said. “It’s another test for our ballclub. We just have to turn our game up a click higher.”

The question is: How many clicks do the Brewers have left. Billy Bates, summoned to replace Gantner, is the 12th player recalled from triple-A Denver this year. The Brewers have put 14 players on the disabled list and still have nine on, with the 15-, 21- and 30-day lists full.