NAMES & NUMBERS

Dwight Gooden was 7-6 on June 30 and under scrutiny by the New York tabloids, which featured a variety of “What’s up, Doc?” headlines. He is 5-0 with a 2.08 earned-run average in seven starts since, having struck out 42 in 52 2/3 innings.

“Doc is still the man around here,” teammate John Franco said. “If anyone has any doubts about it, he needs to have his head examined.”

Along with a number of other breakdowns in a disappointing season, the Boston Red Sox have executed fundamentals so poorly that Joe Morgan, the exasperated manager, said the other day:

“If we were doctors or lawyers we wouldn’t be around too long. They’d take our license.”

Cecil Fielder, burying any doubt that last year was a fluke, is on his way to leading the American League in home runs and runs batted in for a second consecutive year, a feat achieved by only two players, excluding ties: Babe Ruth (1920-21-22) and Jimmie Foxx (1932-33).

Mitch Williams, the one and only closer for the Philadelphia Phillies with Roger McDowell gone, seems to have regained the form with which he saved 36 games for the Chicago Cubs in 1989. In his last 14 appearances through Thursday, Wild Thing had a 4-0 record, six saves and a 1.00 earned-run average.

The Phillies are 16-9 in the second half, and have had a seven-game losing streak and a nine-game winning streak. More impressive than the resiliency has been the improvement by a young pitching staff since Jim Fregosi was appointed manager. Fregosi’s input and impact on that staff bodes well for ’92.

“Fregosi has a different way than, say, Nick Levya,” pitcher Bruce Ruffin said, comparing the current manager to his predecessor. “Fregosi is letting us, making us, go out and pitch in tough situations. That’s the best way to build confidence.”

Bruce Hurst, 14-5, has provided the San Diego Padres their only reliability in a season in which they have used 20 pitchers. The Padres, through Thursday, were 16-7 in Hurst’s starts, compared to a 36-49 record when others started.

Rafael Palmeiro and Julio Franco of the Texas Rangers could become the ninth teammates to finish 1-2 in a major league batting race in the last 50 years. The last to do it were Don Mattingly and Dave Winfield of the New York Yankees in 1984.

The Cleveland Indians were on a pace to lose 109 games through Thursday. At the least, they seem destined to lose 100 or more for the third time in seven seasons, a span in which the 25 other teams have lost 100 or more games in a season only five times.

Lee Smith of the St. Louis Cardinals leads the National League in saves, having converted 28 of 32 chances while compiling a remarkable strikeout-walk ratio of 50 strikeouts and five unintentional walks in 52 1/3 innings.

John Smoltz of the Atlanta Braves, 2-11 in the first half, is 5-1 since. Smoltz visited a sports psychologist during the All-Star break. But as Braves’ broadcaster Don Sutton could have told him, outlining the philosophy that helped Sutton, a 324-game winner, keep his mind straight: The key to winning is not how you pitch but when you pitch.

The Braves scored 41 runs in Smoltz’s first six starts of the second half, accounting for that improved record despite a higher ERA than he had in the first half, 5.25 compared to 5.16.

Mark Davis, the 1989 Cy Young award winner with the San Diego Padres but the biggest bust of the 1990 free-agent class after being signed by the Kansas City Royals, might have found his ’89 form on a rehabilitation assignment at Omaha. He was 4-1 there with a 2.05 ERA, only nine walks and 35 strikeouts.

But the only role for Davis on a hot Kansas City staff is long relief. Jeff Montgomery remains an effective closer, and rookie Mike Magnante of Burroughs High and UCLA has become the left-handed set-up man, having allowed only three earned runs in his last 15 1/3 innings, with 14 strikeouts in that span.

Two of the newest candidates trying to meet Eli Jacobs’ $120-million asking price for the Baltimore Orioles are Jack Luskin and Steven L. Miles. Luskin owns a hardware chain in the Baltimore area and bills himself as “the cheapest guy in town.” Miles, an attorney, operates a chain of offices and, suggests Peter Schmuck of the Baltimore Morning Sun, could adopt the following as an Oriole slogan: “If We Don’t Win, You Don’t Pay.”