McLemore Keeps Things Stirred Up as Angels Win

Remember that duel-to-the-final-cut Johnny Ray and Mark McLemore waged for the right to play second base for the Angels last spring?

Six months and 150 games later, the competition has been reheated.

For the second time in as many games, McLemore started in place of Ray Monday night.

For the second time in as many games, McLemore helped prod the Angel offense into enough activity to beat a team the Angels should beat. This time, the opponent was the Minnesota Twins and the final score was 6-3--a victory that moved the Angels past Kansas City into sole possession of second place in the American League West, still 2 1/2 games behind Oakland.

Batting second behind Brian Downing in Manager Doug Rader’s new lineup, McLemore reached base three times Monday after driving in two runs Sunday. He began a three-run first inning with a single off starter David West. In the sixth, he singled and forced Twin shortstop Al Newman into a throwing error by sprinting down the first base line.

As long as McLemore keeps this up, Rader says, this lineup has a good chance to keep going up on the Angels’ dugout wall.

“I think it’s important to look at it every day, to see how we stack up,” Rader said. “But it’s the old line--’If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.’ I’m going to play whoever’s doing the best job and I don’t think you can fault the job Mac is doing now.”

It isn’t often a team in playoff contention benches its leading hitter--Ray is batting .295--during the final two weeks of the regular season.

Particularly when the replacement is hitting .230 and was recently recalled from triple A when roster limits expanded Sept. 1.

But the Angels’ offensive stagnation in Chicago--four runs and 31 strikeouts in the first three games--prompted Rader to shake things up, moving Downing and McLemore, two players who know how to take a walk, into the top two slots in his batting order.

Moreover, Ray hasn’t made many points with Rader lately. Rader pulled Ray in the sixth inning of a Sept. 10 game against Boston for failing to run out a pop fly and benched him the next game. During the two starts he has made on this trip, Ray has one single in eight at-bats.

Add McLemore’s superior speed and the fact that Ray has walked only 34 times in 502 at-bats this season.

“Mark has the ability to work a pitcher and possibly draw a walk,” Rader said. “I also wanted to get some speed at the top of the lineup to possibly get some things started.

“He’s done a very, very fine job. I’m very happy for him.”

Ray isn’t quite so happy.

“I don’t know nothing about nothing,” Ray snapped when asked about the switch at second base. “You ask (Rader). Don’t ask me.”

Pressed further, Ray bristled and said “Nothing surprises me. . . . It’s interesting.”

With that, he buttoned the last button on his shirt, broke through a cluster of writers and hurried out the clubhouse door.

And McLemore’s opinion of the new lineup?

“I’m in it, so I like it,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to play and help the club win the division. There’s nothing better than that.”

McLemore was a catalyst in the Angels’ three-run first inning against West (3-2), singling between outs by Downing and Devon White. Wally Joyner followed with a single, and Chili Davis then hit a 420-foot home run over the center-field fence, his seventh three-run home run of the season and 22nd home run overall.

All of this was dumped into the lap of Angel starter Bert Blyleven, who has a reputation of knowing what to do with 3-0 leads in late September games of significance.

“A three-run lead with Bert Blyleven pitching usually gives you a pretty nice expectancy of how the game’s going to turn out,” Rader said.

Or, as Davis observed: “A 3-0 lead with Chili Davis pitching is better than nothing. Therefore, a 3-0 lead with Bert Blyleven pitching is a plus.”

Blyleven (16-4) took that lead and ran with it for eight innings. After throwing 120 pitches, he turned a 6-1 lead over to Willie Fraser, who yielded two runs in the bottom of the ninth before recording the final out.

The Angels scored a fourth run in the second inning after homeplate umpire John Shulock ruled that an inside pitch to Jack Howell, with Howell bunting, actually hit him in the batting helmet. The Twins argued that the pitch first hit either Howell’s hands or the bat handle--television replays were inconclusive--and sought the advice of other witnesses, Howell included.

Howell didn’t argue the call and when no other umpire disputed it, he remained on first base. Howell eventually scored on a wild pitch by West.

An inning later, Howell made the score 5-0 with a run-scoring single, and McLemore scored the Angels’ sixth run by singling and coming home on a single by Joyner.

In two games as the Angels’ starting second baseman, McLemore has reached base five times in 10 at-bats, including a sacrifice fly in Sunday’s 6-3 victory over Chicago.

And this time a month ago, McLemore was seemingly wrapping up a lost season in triple A, having been banished to Edmonton in late April, where he batted .244 for the Trappers.

“This game has a lot of twists and turns,” McLemore said.

And as long as he helps the Angels put a winning twist on their daily rounds, McLemore’s turn at second base could last awhile.

Angel Notes

So, was Jack Howell really hit by David West’s pitch in the second inning? That was what home-plate umpire John Shulock wanted to know, eventually going so far as to poll Howell on the issue. Already standing on first base during an important game in late September, Howell didn’t figure to say no and relinquish the base. “You can do worse than (trust the word of) Jack Howell,” Angel Manager Doug Rader said. “Something hit him in the head and he thought it was the ball.” But had the ball first nicked his hands or his bat, making it a foul ball? “It wasn’t a direct blow,” Howell acknowledged. “A direct blow would’ve killed me. Maybe graze is the correct word. (But) I assume that if it hit off the bat, the umpire would’ve noticed it and the catcher would’ve made a bigger deal out of it. If that pitch had hit me in the hands, I would’ve have really known it.” . . . Twins Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek both reached 200 Monday night. With a double and two singles, Puckett eclipsed the 200-hit level for 1989 and with a 430-foot home run off Bert Blyleven in the sixth inning, Hrbek hit the 200 mark in home runs. Hrbek’s blast, which landed in the upper deck, enabled him to join Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva and Bobby Allison as the only players to hit 200 or more home runs for the Twins.

The Angels also scored a victory in the New York office of American League President Bobby Brown on Monday, when coins were flipped to determine home-field advantage in the event of a tiebreaking AL West playoff. If the Angels finish in a two-way tie for first, they would play host to either Oakland or Kansas City in a one-game playoff Monday, Oct. 2. In case of a three-way tie, the Angels would play host to Oakland on Oct. 2 with the winner playing host to Kansas City on Oct. 3.