It’s a Mom and Pop Victory for Blyleven and Angels, 3-0

Mum’s generally the word when pitchers are preparing for a game, but for Bert Blyleven, mom was the word.

Winless in four starts this season and unable to get past the fourth inning in his last two starts, Blyleven resorted to desperate measures.

“My wife decided that my mother was good luck,” he said, “so we flew my mom and dad in from California for the game. . . . Sometimes, you run into little slumps and I’m glad for my mother.”

The Angels were equally glad of the six shutout innings and eight strikeouts Blyleven recorded in leading them to a 3-0 victory over Baltimore Wednesday at Memorial Stadium.

The moral support that Jenny and Joe Blyleven of Garden Grove gave their 39-year-old son may have been the lift he needed to turn around what threatened to become a dismal season.

“My first four outings, I was really disappointed with the way I was throwing,” said Blyleven, whose 272 career victories rank 27th all-time. “The second inning in New York (last Friday) I felt I was more aggressive than I had been, and I knew I had to be more aggressive this time. What I did is I went through a dead-arm stage. Between the outing in New York and throwing on the side, I was just more aggressive tonight.”

He had help. Devon White gave the Angels a 1-0 lead in the sixth inning when he hit his second home run of the season, a 360-foot shot into the left-field bleachers off Oriole left-hander Jeff Ballard (0-4).

The Angels added two in the eighth inning on a two-base error charged to third baseman Craig Worthington for bobbling and throwing away White’s grounder, two sacrifices, a double, a walk and a run-scoring single by Max Venable.

Wally Joyner helped keep it close in the bottom of the seventh with a rare unassisted double play off a ground ball. Mickey Tettleton led off with a single off reliever Mike Witt, and Worthington followed with a one-hopper to Joyner. Joyner stepped on first and then got Tettleton in a rundown, finally tagging the Oriole catcher before he reached second base. It cleared the bases, which proved crucial when Bill Ripken followed with a single to right.

“Two outs without making a throw. That’s a textbook play,” said Joyner, who furthered the Angels’ eighth-inning rally with a sacrifice bunt that moved White to third. “Obviously, you don’t work on a play like that, but you talk about it and make yourself realize you can do it. It has to hit the ground. I did it here a couple years ago, but it didn’t work. He (Tettleton) ran and then stopped and didn’t know where the ball was.”

If it was the defensive play of the game, the limelight still belonged to Blyleven (1-2). He left after six innings because of tightness in his right triceps muscle, but he said that doesn’t concern him. By then, he had passed Don Sutton for fourth place on the all-time strikeout list, finishing with 3,578. He tied Sutton in the fourth with a slow curve that fooled Joe Orsulak. He passed Sutton in the fifth by getting Tettleton to take a third strike.

The next benchmark is Tom Seaver’s total of 3,640.

“Tonight was the first time I walked somebody (in 23 2/3 innings), but I was ahead of the count most of the time,” said Blyleven, who lowered his ERA from 9 to 6.84. “I pitched the way I think I should.”

Even if he did not behave as mischievously as he usually does.

“He looked very determined, didn’t he?” catcher Lance Parrish said. “When you can’t get a smile out of Bert, you know he means business. He wanted to get that first ‘W.’ He wanted to get that out of the way. This wasn’t, I don’t want to say do or die, but a big game for him to put up or shut up.”

It helped the Angels improve to 5-7 on their longest trip of the season with tonight’s makeup game at Seattle to go.

After winning consecutive games for the first time since April 14-15, the Angels say they’re ready to start the kind of roll they had last season, when they followed a 10-10 start with a 26-9 run.

“It’s been a little bit unsettling around here because of concern about who the guy going out was going to be,” Manager Doug Rader said, referring to the reduction of rosters to 25. “Then there was the (Luis Polonia) trade, the length of the road trip. They’re plugging along, doing well.”

Angel Notes

Jimmie Reese, 85, the Angels’ conditioning coach, was listed in fair condition in the coronary care unit at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica after suffering a coronary blockage Tuesday and undergoing an emergency angioplasty. . . . Mark Eichhorn pitched two hitless innings to earn his fifth save in as many opportunities.