Ryan Gets Blast of His Angel Past

Turning back the clock can be hazardous duty. Nolan Ryan knows. When you’re 43 going on 25, you sometimes run the risk of going back to 1972 as well.

This is how Ryan used to do it during his early Angel days, back when the Big A still had a Big A and the Angel offense was lower case all the way.

A standing ovation as he walked in from the bullpen.

Eleven strikeouts, including the entire side during the last inning he worked.

A three-hitter, consisting of a flare to center field and two ground balls that didn’t leave the infield.

A throwing error by his third baseman.

A walk followed by a wild pitch.

A 2-0 defeat.

Welcome home, Nollie. Welcome back to where you once belonged.

Speaking from atop the exercise cycle in the Texas Ranger clubhouse, where he attempted to churn away some heavy frustration, Ryan had to admit that Tuesday night had the same taste, the same touch and the same smell as some of those senseless Angel evenings of yesteryear.

“Yeah, in a way,” he said with a grin. “A walk and a wild pitch. I put those guys in scoring position and it cost us a game.

“I’ve been in that position before.”

Ryan was too decent to add that he also has been victimized by shoddy defense and sullen offense before. Too many times. Tuesday’s loss to Kirk McCaskill marked the 49th time Ryan had been beaten by a shutout. That ties him with Phil Niekro for second place on the all-time list, trailing only Walter (Big Train, Bad Karma) Johnson and his 65 shutout defeats.

But Ryan, as always, refused to lift a pointing finger. “They don’t get any easier,” is all he would say, “because tonight, I don’t got anybody to blame but myself.”

Let us recount the sins of Ryan.

With one out in the top of the third inning, Ryan gets Johnny Ray to pop up to shallow center field. Gary Pettis, the Texas center fielder, is as fast as anyone who plays his position, but he wasn’t fast enough to grab this one. Pettis’ head-first dive comes up empty and the Angels had their first hit of the night.

Dick Schofield bats next and cues a fly ball down the right field line, into foul territory. Ranger right fielder Ruben Sierra draws a bead on the ball but just as he reaches the railing, an overzealous souvenir-seeker lunges for the ball and tumbles onto the field. Neither Sierra nor the fan make the play, so Schofield gets to bat again.

He works Ryan for a walk.

Pitching to Luis Polonia, Ryan uncorks a curveball in the dirt. Texas catcher Geno Petralli can’t get a grip and the ball bounds away. Wild pitch. Angels on second and third.

Polonia sends a swinging bunt down the first-base line, which Ryan gloves and throws to first for the out, allowing Ray to score. Devon White follows with a routine grounder to third, which first winds up in the glove of Ranger third baseman Jeff Kunkel and then bounces in the dirt past first baseman Rafael Palmeiro for a two-base error.

Schofield scores and the Angels build a 2-0 lead.

Atrocious inning by Ryan.

From behind the desk in the visiting manager’s office, Bobby Valentine polished off one beer and asked for two more. He kicked up his feet and ran a hand through his hair.

“He did a good job tonight,” Valentine said, referring to Ryan. “I told him he did a good job. That’s the easy part. Explaining why he didn’t get a win is the tough part.”

He had a point.

“A bloop, a walk, a ball gets by the catcher, a ground ball and a ground ball--and they score two runs,” Valentine recounted while he grimaced. “Whew.”

Little did Ryan know that when he fielded Polonia’s bouncer and threw to first instead of home that the run would eventually be enough to beat him. Or so he claimed.

“In that situation, I had to assume that we are gonna score a run,” Ryan said. “I had to get the out at first and not give them the opportunity at a good-sized inning.

“I might’ve had a 50-50 chance at (Ray), but with our type of ballclub, you had to feel the chances of them shutting us out weren’t real good.”

But then the heart of the Ranger offense--Palmeiro, Sierra and Julio Franco--goes hitless and Pettis is thrown out trying to steal second with a runner on third in the sixth inning and McCaskill pitches his first shutout in more than a year, dating to Aug. 20, 1989.

“I’ve learned that in games like this,” Ryan said, “that you’ve got to give credit to the guy across the hall.”

Ryan threw 119 pitches but was throwing just as hard at the end of the game as in the beginning. Ask Schofield, Polonia and White, who struck out in the eighth inning. Or ask Dante Bichette, who painfully took a Ryan fastball off the right elbow in the seventh.

“It looked like I got him pretty good,” Ryan said, “so I had to ask him how he was. But Doug (Rader, Angel Manager) said it didn’t stay on his elbow long enough to hurt.”

With Ryan, who has done this for so many years, there is no great honor in finishing strong when you’re down by two runs. There is no great thrill in striking out the side in the bottom of the eighth when you know there won’t be a bottom of the ninth.

“It’s a nice way to finish up a loss, I guess,” he said, managing a smile. And then he kept pedaling, hopefully back to the future.