This Free Agent Was a Catch for Red Sox : Baseball: Leaving the Cardinals was the best thing for Tony Pena and for Boston.

They say there is no place like New England when the Boston Red Sox are in the pennant race.

To which Joe Morgan, who was born in Walpole, Mass., and grew up to become Boston’s manager, says: “There’s no place like New England, anytime, winter or summer, for me.”

For Tony Pena, born in the Dominican Republic, the Boston legacy and the feeling of a New England fall are strange. But they can agree on one thing: There’s no place like a pennant race.

Pena thought the St. Louis Cardinals were going to win the National League East when he left them after last season, pushed out by the promise of young catcher Todd Zeile.

At 33, Pena’s defense is near its best, but his average slipped to .259 last season, his two .300 years with Pittsburgh in the early 1980s further and further behind.

Pena left the Cardinals, with whom he hit .409 in the 1987 World Series loss to Minnesota, and signed a $6.4-million, three-year, free-agent contract with the Red Sox, changing leagues for the first time after nine years in the majors.

Now the Cardinals are in last place and Whitey Herzog has resigned. And the Red Sox have a two-game lead over the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East through Tuesday.

“Whitey came to me two weeks before the season was over,” Pena said. “Whitey wanted me to stay. I said, ‘Don’t even bother.’ I already made up my mind. I’m not ready to platoon yet. Thank God, I made the right decision.”

The Red Sox, who play the Angels at Anaheim Stadium tonight in the final game of a three-game series, are working their way through a West Coast swing that has proved trying in years past, and they face the final two months of the season without stopper Jeff Reardon, who had 18 saves in 25 chances before undergoing surgery for a ruptured disk Saturday.

The addition of Pena has been one of the reasons the Red Sox are in first place, even though they have found themselves pitching-poor--beyond the remarkable performance of Roger Clemens--and so power-poor that they are next to last in the league in home runs.

What has Pena done?

“Plenty,” Morgan said, with his customary brevity. “Next question.”

Pena started the season hitting .403 in April, which says something about who fared better with limited knowledge of the opponent--Pena, not the pitchers. His average has since fallen to .254. It was last at .300 on May 26 and stood at .280 when he sprained his right thumb on June 11. He has six home runs, including a solo shot during the 6-3 victory over the Angels Tuesday night.

But since Pena has slumped, other Red Sox have kept the offense sturdy. Jody Reed, Carlos Quintana, Wade Boggs and Ellis Burks give them four starters hitting better than .300.

More important than hitting is the defense and leadership Pena has provided.

“(Red Sox General Manager) Lou Gorman told me, ‘I want you to catch, call the game and throw people out. That’s what I need,’ ” Pena said. “I don’t worry about my hitting as much as calling the game. . . . I can separate the game, hitting and defense. If I don’t hit, I just think about my catching. Keep the other ballclub close. We’ll score the runs.”

He has also helped the Red Sox pitchers, such as Tom Bolton (6-1) and Greg Harris (9-4), both relievers who became starters.

“He keeps on ‘em all the time,” Morgan said. “He won’t let them stray too far before he gets on ‘em. And people don’t run on us like they did other years either.”

Harris says even Clemens, who needs little help considering he has a 15-5 record and a 2.14 earned-run average, has benefited from Pena.

“You’re able to get low strikes, he’s down so low,” Harris said. “Roger has gotten a lot of low strikes. You’re given a bigger plate because the umpire can see more of it. Also, even though you still have to work to hold runners on, he’s so quick, he gets (throws) off. Runners can’t get too aggressive because he can throw from his knees and pick them off first.”

First base is another place where Pena’s influence has been felt. With Nick Esasky going to the Atlanta Braves as a free agent, the Red Sox sought a first baseman but never acquired one. The job fell to Quintana, 24, who entered the season with only 39 games in the majors. He started in a platoon situation but won the job by early May.

Under the guidance of Pena, who calls instructions down the first base line in Spanish during the game, Quintana is fielding his position well and hitting .315 with seven homers.

“He’s worked with Quintana since spring training,” Morgan said. “I told him to work with him, and he has.”

Pena said it was a matter of Quintana getting the assurance that he owned the job.

“For a guy who never played first, I think he’s doing an outstanding job,” Pena said. “I don’t think anybody could do a better job. . . . We talk a lot. When he does something wrong, I try to communicate how he can do it. But there’s not much you can tell a guy, the way he’s been able to do it.”

Pena has been able to do his job, too, despite the difficulty of changing leagues and the pressures of signing a big free-agent contract.

“For me it was not real hard,” Pena said. “It was harder to go from Pittsburgh to St. Louis, than St. Louis to here. . . . I was ready for a challenge. I know it’s not easy to make the change from one league to the other. I made the adjustments. Right on the first day I came to spring training, my team opened their arms to me. That was what I needed.”

In a year of noted free-agent failures, Pena has been a success.

“People expect so much, it’s tough,” he said. “You’re a free agent, you sign for so much money, and they think you’re going to carry the team. I just do my best every single day. That’s the only thing anybody can do.”

It is all the Red Sox can do as they try to hold off challengers in the East.

“I think a lot of the fans are really rabid because we haven’t won a World Series in a long time,” Morgan said, musing about the crowds that come out to watch the Red Sox on the road. The team they pull for has not won a World Series since 1918.

“It’s always there,” Morgan said.