Schofield Is Battling His Demons

This is a picture you can paint with numbers.

There is only one player in the major leagues with more than 100 at-bats this season who has driven in only a single run.

It is the Angels’ Dick Schofield.

There is no one in the major leagues who is hitting worse with runners in scoring position. That would be impossible: Schofield is 0 for 12.

When Angel General Manager Mike Port criticized some of the team’s underachievers this week, he didn’t name names. But Schofield knew the anonymous finger pointed at him. Not at him alone--but at him, just the same.

Schofield entered this season with a .231 career average. He is, after all, a shortstop renowned for his glove.

But with runners on base he was hitting only .213--the lowest average of any active player with at least 400 major league at-bats.

This season has been little short of dismal. After missing the first two months with a hamstring injury, he has struggled, although he will not blame his struggles on the missed time.

“When I first came back from rehab, I played five games or so and felt pretty good,” Schofield said. “I hit a few hard, but didn’t get the hits. Then I really started battling.”

His average has been above .200 only one day this season, when it stood at .204 after getting two hits June 25.

Nevertheless, he has persisted, despite unsettling trouble with his fielding, the skill that makes him a major leaguer. In 39 games, he has committed seven errors, equaling his total of a year ago.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had anything this bad,” he said. “Nothing is coming out right.”

But he has worked and pushed.

“Give him a lot of credit,” Manager Doug Rader said. “He has worked very, very hard. His confidence level is higher than anybody has a right to expect.”

And in recent days, even though he had only three hits in his past 23 at-bats before the Angels’ 9-4 victory Friday over the Cleveland Indians, Schofield has shown signs of getting closer.

“He’s just about there,” Deron Johnson, the hitting coach, said before the game. “He knows what he’s trying to do. He’s been hitting the ball good, but right at them.” Schofield went two for four in the game at Anaheim Stadium, collecting two hits in a game for only the fifth game this year and raising his average to .192.

He has not hit well since before last Aug. 10, when he was hit on the left hand by a pitch by Seattle’s Scott Bankhead, breaking a bone.

He was placed on the disabled list Aug. 11 and missed 39 games before being reactivated Sept. 21. He played 91 games in 1989, a career low.

He was 8 for 31 in the month of August, and 1 for 17 the rest of the season. He has one homer since then--the one this season that accounts for his only RBI.

Schofield says being hit has not affected his comfort at the plate.

“You’re going to get hit,” he said after being brushed back this week. “Some guys run the ball in on you and you don’t pick it up as quick as you do off other guys.

“Whatever I hit, I’ve got to be happy with it,” Schofield said. “I put out the effort. I’ve got nothing to show for it right now . . . I know it will come. If it doesn’t come this year, I believe it will come next year. That’s what you’ve got to think.”