Milwaukee Rips Witt Quickly in 7-1 Victory

To a man, the Angels insist they aren’t conceding the American League West title yet. In fact, third baseman Jack Howell says this is the point in the season where “every player has to go home every night and kick himself in the butt.”

For the first 15 minutes of Thursday night’s game, the Milwaukee Brewers did that for the Angels, scoring five times in the first inning en route to a 7-1 victory before 24,012 fans.

After the first inning, the Angels might just as well have mailed in their at-bats. They made Brewer starter Tom Filer (6-3) look like Nolan Ryan. Angel hitters managed just four hits off Filer, which included an infield single and a half-swing blooper. Chili Davis had the only extra-base hit for the Angels, tripling off reliever Tony Fossas in the ninth inning.

So the Angels are six games behind division-leading Oakland, the largest deficit they’ve faced this season.

“The fact of the matter is that we don’t have enough people putting together efficient at-bats on a daily basis,” Manager Doug Rader said. “A number of key players aren’t doing much with the bat.”

Is there even a chance the Angels are maybe just a little bit disillusioned with the results of the past few weeks?

“No,” Rader said.

“If you don’t have enough offense, if you’re not running the bases and scoring runs and congratulating each other, you look flat. That’s the only reason we look flat.”

The Brewers certainly had no problems in that area Thursday night.

Mike Witt was making his 300th appearance as an Angel--second only to Dave LaRoche (304) in club history--but the Brewers quickly made it a night he’d rather forget. Of course, this hasn’t been a very memorable season for Witt any way you look at it.

Witt (8-13), whose season-long struggles have been well-chronicled, reached a new low this time out, giving up six hits and five runs in the first inning. Milwaukee had a 3-0 lead before he retired a batter.

“It just seemed like they hit everything,” said Witt, who has been working with pitching coach Marcel Lachemann on speeding up his delivery. “I felt I had good stuff, but I didn’t put the ball where I wanted to. And they hit some good pitches, too.”

Witt didn’t pitch well, to be sure, but he got very little help from his friends afield, and that made matters worse in the first inning.

Mike Felder opened the festivities by beating out a grounder to second base that Johnny Ray charged and then bobbled before deciding not to attempt a throw. Bill Spiers followed with a a line drive to right field that bounced in front of--and then off the glove of--Max Venable and rolled to the wall for a triple.

Paul Molitor gave the Brewers a 2-0 lead with a double down the left-field line, and Robin Yount made it a three-run advantage with a single to right.

Witt got Greg Brock to pop out and earned a Bronx cheer. Rob Deer also popped out, but Glenn Braggs and B. J. Surhoff both singled, and the Brewers were up, 4-0. With Ed Romero up, Surhoff broke for second, and Braggs, who was on third, started for home. When recently acquired catcher Ron Tingley’s throw sailed into right-center, Braggs jogged home and Surhoff took second with a double-steal.

It was Braggs’ third steal of home this season, tying him for the Brewer record with Molitor, who accomplished the feat three times last year.

Braggs used an even easier way to get home in the fifth, belting a Witt delivery deep into the left-field seats for his 15th homer.

The Angels finally pushed across an unearned run in the sixth. Filer threw high to first after fielding a dribbler by Devon White, and Venable singled White to third. One out later, he scored on a half-swing, opposite-field single to left by pinch-hitter Jim Eppard.

It was too little, too late, which may also describe any kind of winning streak the Angels can muster at this point.

“We went into that last road trip in first place,” Witt said. “We come back three or four games behind. That’s hard to take. We just haven’t regrouped.”

Rader did admit that the Angels need to win a few games down the stretch, even if the A’s remain beyond their reach.

“It’s vitally important that we win some games in September,” he said. “To this point, we haven’t proved that’s something we can do, and I don’t want that to be a trend.”

And then, when someone pointed out that the Angels had shown resiliency at other junctures this season, Rader allowed a rare negative thought to escape.

“I really don’t know how emotionally resilient this team is right now,” he said.

Angel Notes

The realization that the American League West title may be slipping from his team’s grasp hasn’t changed Manager Doug Rader’s approach to the game. He tries to maintain his perspective and remain philosophical. “We will continue to persevere and focus on the immediate,” Rader said. “I said it early and it’s still true. Our goal is to play to our ability. If at the end of the year, that’s good enough to win it, then that’s a blessing. If not, we’ll have to do some things to get better. We can’t concern ourselves with the things we can’t control. We can only play to our ability. That’s all we can hope to accomplish.”. . . First baseman Wally Joyner was removed from Thursday night’s game in the sixth inning because of blurred vision caused by new contact lens. His replacement, Jim Eppard, came through with a run-scoring single.