HE HAS THE MONEY, HE HAS THE TALENT : But Does He Have What It Takes? : Baseball: Dick Williams says Mark Langston is gutless, but teammates come to the Angel pitcher’s defense.

There is the Dick Williams theory, which holds that Mark Langston lacks fortitude, is a quitter and incapable of pitching for a winning team.

In Anaheim, however, when the Angels analyze Langston and his 5-15 record, the opinions are--not surprisingly--less inflammatory.

The Angels are paying Langston $3 million in salary and bonus this year and have guaranteed another $13 million over the next four years.

They are not ready to second-guess the wisdom of that decision or alienate Langston by calling him gutless, as Williams did when he managed Langston and the Seattle Mariners in 1988 and again in his soon-to-be-released book, “No More Mr. Nice Guy.”

The Angels say Langston’s current rate of $600,000 per victory--based on his 1990 income--is an aberration and he will eventually prove that he was worth $16 million.

“I still believe they believe in me and I still believe in myself,” Langston said of the Angels as he sat at his Anaheim Stadium locker the other day. “As bad as I’ve been, I know I can pitch and I know I have people behind me. That’s important.”

Langston will put his and the Angels’ beliefs on the line again tonight against the New York Yankees, making his 25th start. He is coming back on two days of rest after lasting only 2 2/3 innings of an 11-6 loss to the Baltimore Orioles Sunday.

It was the third time in his last five starts that he has failed to finish the third inning. He has given up 29 earned runs in the 20 innings of those five starts and 46 earned runs in his last 49 2/3 innings, his overall ERA ballooning to 4.79.

He is 1-9 in his last 11 starts at home, 1-10 in his last 11 decisions overall and the major league leader in losses, the 15 representing a career high.

Langston said he is baffled and frustrated. Attorney Arn Tellem said his client’s confidence has been badly shaken.

“Mark is very disappointed, very down right now,” Tellem said. “He obviously feels he’s let the owner (Gene Autry), manager (Doug Rader) and team down, and he feels he’s let himself down because he takes great pride in his performance.

“After he came out of Sunday’s game, he apologized to Rader for having let the team down again and Rader told him that he would prove to be a great investment, that the Angels had signed him for five years and not this year alone. Bert Blyleven, Kirk McCaskill, Jim Abbott and others came up to the clubhouse to give him support, and all of that helped.

“He feels fine physically and knows the situation will correct itself, but right now it’s a struggle, a very tough time.”

Said Rader, experiencing a test himself as the Angels stumble through the summer:

“It’s impossible for someone who isn’t in the spotlight, the public eye, to understand what Mark is going through right now.

“From a vocational standpoint it’s probably the toughest thing he’ll ever have to deal with, but once through it, and I’m confident he’ll get through it, it should set him up for the rest of his life. There are few worthwhile lessons that don’t come hard.”

The lesson here deals with adversity. Langston, who turns 30 Monday, said he has never experienced anything like it, calling it the toughest period of a career in which he was previously 86-76 during six seasons with the Mariners and Montreal Expos, compiling a .531 percentage for teams that were .455.

Now he is with a team only 1 1/2 games out of last place in the American League West. Only two of the league’s 14 teams had made more errors or scored fewer runs.

Langston said none of that is a factor, nor is the size of his paycheck. He said he is his own toughest critic, that his effort would be the same if he was making the minimum, that he does not feel he has been consciously pressing, carrying the burden and expectations of his contract.

Others disagree.

“I think he wants so badly to do well, to justify the investment, that he’s fighting a lot of self-imposed pressure,” General Manager Mike Port said. “I think he’s going through much the same thing that Mark Davis is with Kansas City. The key thing is for him to relax so that Mark Langston can be Mark Langston.”

Despite face-to-face assurances from Port that the Angels have no regrets, that the club is looking at his signing as a five-year investment, the bimonthly paychecks remind Langston that the expectations are greater than they were in Seattle.

There also is the lingering frustration of a four-start span in June in which Langston lost twice 2-1, once 2-0 and emerged with no decision from a 2-1 loss.

Having combined with Mike Witt on a no-hitter in his first Angel start, Langston seemed to come out of June thinking he needed a no-hitter every start.

Bob Harrison, the scout who signed Langston for the Mariners and regularly operates out of Anaheim Stadium, sensed it.

“His stuff seems to be as good as ever, but what happened is that losing all those close games snowballed, and now it’s become a mental thing,” said Harrison. “As much as anything, Mark seems to be fighting himself.”

Said Tellem: “If he had gotten some wins early, when he was pitching well, his confidence would have been bolstered. Now it’s badly shaken. Instead of pitching aggressively, pitching to win, he seems to be pitching from a fear of losing.”

At times, pressing, he has overthrown. At times, tentative, he has shelved his 90 m.p.h.-plus fastball and thrown too many breaking balls, particularly when behind in the count, which he has been consistently.

Langston led the AL in strikeouts three times at Seattle, averaging 8.2 per nine innings when he won 17 games as a rookie in 1984 and 8.7 when he won 19 games in 1987. He is now down to 7.6 per nine innings with a walk ratio of 4.3, up from 3.7 in ’87.

“One of Mark’s problems is that he has four pitches (fastball, slider, curve and changeup) and wants to show all four to every hitter,” a source close to the Angels’ situation said. “He’s not aggressive enough when he’s behind in the count.”

Behind in the count and throwing high in the strike zone, Langston has given up 47 of his 94 runs with two outs, an exasperating aspect of his struggle.

Catcher Lance Parrish said he has tried different formats--increasing the number of fastballs and decreasing the number of curves, etc.--in an effort to turn Langston around, but “it comes down to an inability to put the ball where he wants it at crucial times. He may be trying to do too much, but I also think there’s a mechanical block that affects his release point and prevents him from locating his pitches. He hasn’t lost anything (in the quality of his pitches), but he’s not able to set a hitter up, and a lot of times he has to guide a fastball up there just to avoid walking a hitter.”

Langston and the Angels have watched films and tinkered some with his mechanics to the point where pitching coach Marcel Lachemann believes he may have distracted Langston from his No. 1 objective: concentrating on the pitch and the hitter. He believes it’s time for Langston to relax, follow Parrish’s guidance and work within his mechanics as they are.

“I’m as frustrated as he is,” Lachemann said. “When you’ve got that much ability, you shouldn’t have to struggle.”

Some tend to believe that the elusive nature of Langston’s struggle gives credence to Williams’ comments.

Can Langston cope with the pressure? Can he win in an environment where it’s expected? In his book, Williams revives the subject and says Langston took himself out of close games in 1988, choked during the pennant stretch with the Expos last year and is perceived as gutless.

“Anybody can pitch for a loser,” Williams says in the book, “ . . . but let’s see you pitch for a winner. That’s the sign of a true competitor, which Langston is not. I don’t care how many saddlebags Gene Autry dumped on his head. . . . Come on Langston. Let’s see you pitch for a winner. Let’s see you be a winner.”

Langston reacted dispassionately when told he was the subject of a new Williams’ attack.

“He’s said that every year since Seattle,” Langston said. “Maybe people will take it in now and say he’s right, but he doesn’t know me, doesn’t know my drive, doesn’t know what makes me tick.

“If Dick gets satisfaction out of those comments, fine, but he’s not right. I know my makeup. I know I can win. I know I’m not a loser.”

Langston said he is happy to be receiving another start this quickly--as a replacement for Blyleven, who is recovering from a shoulder strain--because the toughest part is the five days in between.

Said Parrish, disputing Williams:

“I don’t think Mark is the type to give in to the situation or environment. There’s not a hitter who walks to the plate that I don’t feel he’ll strike out or get out.

“All it will really take is one good inning or one good game. He only needs to realize where he’s been making his mistakes and it’ll be all over.”

MARK LANGSTON’S SEASON GAME-BY-GAME

Date Opponent IP H R ER BB SO Dec Score April 11 Seattle 7.0 0 0 0 4 3 W 1-0 April 17 Oakland 6.0 7 5 4 2 6 5-7 April 24 Boston 6.0 5 3 0 2 5 L 2-4 April 29 New York 6.0 6 2 2 4 5 W 4-3 May 4 New York 8.0 5 5 5 4 5 L 2-5 May 9 Baltimore 5.0 7 4 4 8 4 L 1-9 May 15 Milwuakee 7.0 7 3 2 3 7 W 8-3 May 20 Toronto 7.0 5 5 4 2 7 L 1-5 May 25 Milwuakee 7.1 4 4 2 4 9 W 5-4 May 30 Cleveland 8.0 7 4 4 1 8 L 1-4 June 5 Kansas City 6.0 11 4 4 2 4 W 6-4 June 10 Texas 8.0 4 2 2 3 12 L 1-2 June 15 Detroit 8.0 4 1 0 4 11 1-2 June 20 Chicago 8.0 10 2 2 2 10 L 1-2 June 25 Chicago 8.0 7 2 2 3 4 L 0-2 July 1 Cleveland 5.0 7 5 5 5 3 L 3-5 July 6 Milwuakee 7.2 8 7 7 5 4 9-8 July 11 Seattle 8.0 5 2 2 4 4 L 1-2 July 16 Milwuakee 9.0 8 3 3 3 7 L 1-3 July 22 Cleveland 2.2 10 6 6 0 2 L 1-8 July 27 Seattle 2.2 7 6 6 2 3 L 1-8 August 1 Minnesota 6.0 10 5 4 2 3 W 11-5 August 7 Boston 6.0 8 5 5 2 2 L 3-6 August 12 Baltimore 2.2 6 8 8 3 3 L 6-11 Totals 155.0 158 93 83 74 131 5-15