Right on Cue, Angels Are Falling Apart

Team September is out of the gates again, so get ready to cut the lights and pack away that playoff bunting. The suspense in Anaheim figures to be over soon.

The Angel revival of ‘89, great fun for five months, has hit the same snag that unravelled the seasons of their 1987 and 1988 predecessors: the end of August. Three games into September, the Angels are 0-3, losers again to the New York Yankees on Sunday afternoon, this time by a score of 5-2.

What we have here is tradition. In 1987, the Angels went 7-19 in September and allowed Minnesota to win the American League West with a paltry 85 victories. In 1988, they went 7-20 and cost Manager Cookie Rojas his job.

Now they’re at it again, losing games and players and their grip in their latest AL West chase--falling 4 1/2 games behind first-place Oakland, the Angels’ largest deficit in the standings since April 27.

And, for the second time in as many days, the Angels lost a member of their starting lineup. Less than 24 hours after first baseman Wally Joyner went down with a knee injury, right fielder Claudell Washington left the team and returned to his home in Orinda, Calif., to attend to what the Angels termed “a family matter.”

Washington was in Manager Doug Rader’s original batting order, but asked and received permission to fly home two days before the end of team’s trip. An Angel spokesman said Washington “needed to take care of some things” and will rejoin the club Tuesday in Anaheim.

Rader was asked about the timing of Washington’s request, with the team still struggling to stay in contention in the AL West.

“Hey, when a guy has a problem of a personal nature, he has to go home--and that’s the end of the story,” Rader said. “There are some things you have control over, but that’s not one of them.

“It’s unfortunate, just like Chuck Finley’s foot was unfortunate and Dick Schofield’s hand was unfortunate. But all you can do is tend to task at hand and not concern yourself with things beyond your control.”

Within the Angels’ control was beating the Yankees, who began this series reeling, buried in sixth place in the AL East with a 3-11 record under rookie Manager Bucky Dent. Four games at Yankee Stadium seemed like a wonderful chance for the Angels to right their wobbly course. Rader went so far as to say winning three out of four games here was “imperative.”

Today, they’ll be happy with one out of four.

The Angels got their third consecutive loss to the Yankees--and fourth overall--when Bert Blyleven couldn’t provide deliverance, Glenn Hoffman couldn’t pick up a ground ball and the Angel offense couldn’t score outside of the fourth inning.

A home run by Chili Davis, a double by Jack Howell and a run-scoring single by Jim Eppard had given the Angels a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning. But that faded, along with Blyleven, in the sixth inning as New York sent 11 batters to the plate and came away with five runs.

The linchpin to the inning, however, was a measly infield roller off the bat of Yankee rookie Hal Morris, coming with runners on first and third and one out. The ball was hit to the right of Hoffman, the Angels’ shortstop, but for some reason, Hoffman’s first step was to his left, toward second base.

By the time he recovered, all Hoffman could do was make a diving lunge for the ball. The baseball skittered under his glove for a single that broke Blyleven’s shutout bid--and helped break the game open.

Don Slaught followed with another run-scoring single that knocked Blyleven (14-4) out of the game. Angel reliever Greg Minton then proceeded to throw the tied game away, with a wild pitch to score New York’s third run before surrendering RBI singles to Randy Velarde and Alvaro Espinoza.

If only Hoffman had fielded that grounder . . .

“When Morris first hit it, I was happy,” Blyleven said. “I thought it was going to be turned for a double play.

“It just eluded Hoffy. Those things happen.”

Hoffman said he initially stepped toward second base because Blyleven’s pitch to Morris was inside, which Hoffman figured Morris, a left-handed hitter, would pull.

“It was a double-play situation and the pitch was down and in,” Hoffman said. “(Morris) just got his hands out and ‘inside-outed’ it. It caught me leaning and I couldn’t pick it up.

“That’s the way we’re going right now. One little mistake becomes a big one.”

And one little team called the Yankees has suddenly become a big problem for the Angels.

Someone asked Rader if the Angels hadn’t approached this series “as intensely” as other stops on the trip.

“That kills me,” Rader replied. “Before we got to New York, I said it was pretty obvious we needed to take three out of four and all of sudden, it’s turned around so that we’re taking the Yankees lightly.

“Everybody’s down on the Yankees, but they’re busting their butts. What I said was not an indictment against the Yankees. I was just hoping we’d play to the ability we needed to win three of four.

“But we haven’t played at that level.”

Angel catcher Lance Parrish, however, was among those who figured the Yankees to be the right opponents at the right time.

“I think that’s what everybody felt,” Parrish said. “It would’ve been great if we swept them--and considering the way they were playing, they certainly were capable of being swept.”

Parrish smiled sadly.

“But,” he added, “I guess we weren’t playing that much better ourselves.”

Angel Notes

Claudell Washington’s checkered season: By the time he rejoins the Angels Tuesday in Anaheim, Washington will have missed 46 of the team’s first 136 games, for assorted reasons. Washington missed 10 games when his daughter Camille was hospitalized for a head injury, 19 games because of an inflamed shin, two games because of a bruised shoulder, 13 games by manager’s decision and, now, two more because of “a family matter.”

Washington has eight hits in his last 21 at-bats, lately serving as Doug Rader’s No. 2 hitter behind leadoff man Devon White--in short, a significant member of the Angel batting order. “I know he left for personal reasons,” Bert Blyleven said Sunday. “Sometimes you realize that family comes first and baseball second. Hopefully, he’ll come back Tuesday with the right attitude and help us, because we need him.”

Chili Davis hit his 20th home run in the fourth inning, nearly had another in the seventh--he wound up with a double--and threw out two runners at second base. After the game, Davis was talking with reporters when he started flexing his right arm, as if working out kinks. “I threw too many guys out today,” he joked. “This arm ain’t used to working like that any more.” Davis’ seventh-inning double was about a foot from being a two-run home run, hitting the low left-field fence just above the 318-feet sign. “Those were a very, very big couple of inches,” Rader said somberly.