Welch Wins Mind Game as A’s Take a 2-0 Lead, 4-1 : AL playoffs: Red Sox fail in their attempts to disturb pitcher’s timing by leaving the batter’s box during his deliveries.

If the Red Sox couldn’t throw Bob Welch off with their hitting, they would try gamesmanship. All that accomplished was to prolong their agony over 3 hours 42 minutes, a record for a nine-inning American League playoff game, but it didn’t help them prolong their series against Oakland.

“No, we won’t be back here,” Oakland’s Rickey Henderson said after the Athletics battered Boston’s bullpen for the second consecutive game, winning, 4-1, at Fenway Park Sunday to take a 2-0 lead in this best-of-seven series.

“If they can beat us two out of three in Oakland, then there’s something wrong with us. But then again anything can happen.”

Of the 14 teams that have taken 2-0 leads in AL playoff series, 12 have won the pennant. On the three occasions that the A’s have taken a 2-0 lead, they have won the series.

With a bullpen that has twice failed miserably, compiling an earned-run average of 15.63 in two games, gamesmanship might be the Red Sox’s best hope of sustaining their chances when the series moves to Oakland for Games 3 and 4 Tuesday and Wednesday.

The gamesmanship began early, when nearly every Boston batter in the first two innings stepped out of the box during various stages of Welch’s delivery, a ploy that not always is allowed by umpires but was tolerated by home plate umpire John Hirschbeck. Oakland Manager Tony La Russa, determined to protect his pitcher, complained to Hirschbeck and got quick action.

“Yeah, that’s what I spoke to (Hirschbeck) about,” La Russa said in angry, clipped tones. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it generally, but when it becomes a tactic, that’s . . . He said he wouldn’t let it be abused.”

The ploy didn’t perturb Welch, who gave up one run and six hits over 7 1/3 innings in his record seventh playoff series.

“It’s a situation I have no control over,” said Welch, who was 1-2 in four playoff series with the Dodgers and is 2-0 in three series with the A’s. “I have to be ready to pitch when they tell me. You could see how slow the pace of the game was . . . It doesn’t bother me, not when the result turns out the way it did.”

The result tipped in Oakland’s favor after the departure of Boston starter Dana Kiecker, who pitched exceptionally well for 5 2/3 innings. He could commiserate with teammate Roger Clemens, who pitched six shutout innings in the series opener and left with a 1-0 lead but didn’t get a victory, either. In the first two games of the series, Boston’s starters have given up one run and 10 hits in 11 2/3 innnings.

The only run Kiecker gave up came in the fourth inning. Willie McGee led off the inning with a double down the right-field line and scored on Harold Baines’ lined single to right. The ball kicked off Tom Brunansky’s glove as Brunansky charged the ball, but McGee would have scored regardless.

That matched the run produced by Boston in the third. Shortstop Luis Rivera, the No. 9 hitter, led off with a double off the wall in left, moved to third on Jody Reed’s grounder to second and scored when Carlos Quintana lined to left field. Rickey Henderson seemed surprised by how quickly the ball came to him, and his throw was about 15 feet wide of the plate.

Welch, who has lost only four times since May 5, was relieved by Rick Honeycutt in the eighth after he gave up one-out singles to Wade Boggs and Ellis Burks. Honeycutt got one out when he induced Mike Greenwell to bounce back to the mound, but it proved a costly out.

Honeycutt, going for the double play, threw to shortstop Walt Weiss to get Burks at second, but Burks’ clean slide sent Weiss hurtling into the air after he caught the ball. Weiss landed awkwardly on his left knee and was obliged to leave the game.

“They think it’s a sprain or a strain,” La Russa said. “We don’t play again until Tuesday, so we’ll just wait and see how he is.”

Honeycutt was in turn relieved by Dennis Eckersley, who struck out one-time Boston teammate Dwight Evans to end the Red Sox’s potential threat. Thanks mostly to Eckersley’s 48 saves--four more than the entire Boston bullpen--the A’s are 91-2 in games they have led after eight innings.

“They’re as tough as I’ve seen and so is the whole team,” Red Sox Manager Joe Morgan said.

They have been tough enough in this series to win both games despite getting uncharacteristically few extra-base hits. Of their 25 hits, 22 have been singles and three have been doubles, a performance La Russa has enjoyed.

“It’s kind of fun having singles and seeing guys scampering around,” he said. “It makes you look like you’re a hustling club.”

Proving how imperative Morgan considered a victory Sunday, he brought in his closer, Jeff Reardon, with Boston trailing, 2-1. Reardon was ineffective in the ninth, giving up two singles, a walk and an RBI-double to Baines.

“I had to show a lot of people I could still play. In Texas I had the feeling they didn’t want me anymore and didn’t think I could play,” said Baines, who the A’s acquired from the Rangers on Aug. 29 for pitchers Joe Bitker and Scott Chiamparino. “It’s nice to be here. Usually, this time of year I’m home watching it.”