Borders Turns Odds Against Angels : Baseball: Home run by Blue Jay catcher in the 10th inning ruins Jim Abbott’s performance, 3-0. He strikes out 13.

Walking Pat Tabler with one out in the 10th inning of a scoreless game made sense to Angel Manager Buck Rodgers, what with Jim Abbott pitching brilliantly and Pat Borders, batting .250, due up next for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Abbott’s control had been nearly flawless through nine innings, and the single by Candy Maldonado that opened the 10th was only the Blue Jays’ third hit against Abbott. There was only one thing to do, as Rodgers saw it.

“Tabler makes a living hitting off left-handers. He has for years,” Rodgers said.

“And he’s a double-play threat. With all that going, I thought (walking Tabler) was the best thing to do. You get out of the inning with one pitch, and you have the eighth and ninth hitters coming up the next inning.”

Borders saw only one pitch, but he foiled Rodgers’ plans by hitting Abbott’s fastball deep into the left-field seats, giving the Blue Jays a 3-0 victory before 21,538 at Anaheim Stadium.

Each of Borders’ last four hits have been home runs, with Dennis Eckersley, Gene Nelson and Ron Darling of the Oakland Athletics preceding Abbott (17-10) in Borders’ hit parade. Overall, Borders is six for 36 in September.

In winning, the Blue Jays increased their AL East lead over the Boston Red Sox to two games and reduced their magic number for clinching the division title to 10.

“He’d been throwing me a lot of silders and fastballs outside and I thought in that situation, he might come inside with a fastball,” Borders said of Abbott, whom he had victimized for a homer once before in 85 at-bats against the Angels.

“He threw it a little out over the plate.”

Abbott recovered to strike out the last two batters in the 10th and increase his total to 13, a personal best and the most by an Angel pitcher in a single game this season. He walked off the mound to his third standing ovation of the night, but by then the thrill was gone.

So, too, was his chance to win 20 games this season.

“Not now,” said the left-hander, who is scheduled for two more starts.

Abbott has given up more than three earned runs only once in his last 17 starts. It was his misfortune Tuesday night that Toronto’s Todd Stottlemyre pitched nearly as well as he did, shutting the Angels out for 7 1/3 innings before David Wells (15-10) took over.

“He wasn’t up against the ’27 Yankees tonight,” Rodgers said of Stottlemyre. “We had to move some guys around (because of injuries).”

“It bothers me a lot,” Abbott said of his vanished hope of winning 20. “Twenty wins seemed like something I could never have dreamed of at the beginning of the year (after an 0-4 start), but the chance was there. I won’t make it now. It’s tough. I gave it a good run.”

If the Angels had given him a few more runs, he would have been the winningest pitcher on the staff instead of another frustrated starter. He threw 83 strikes in his 116 pitches and walked none until the 10th inning.

“At one point, he had thrown 54 strikes and 18 balls, and 10 of the 18 balls were purpose pitches--he wasn’t trying to throw strikes,” Rodgers said. “He had excellent command of everything.”

The 10th would probably have been his last inning if Toronto hadn’t scored, and Angel catcher Ron Tingley was sure there would be an 11th inning after Tabler was walked intentionally.

“At that point, the way Jimmy was throwing the ball, I couldn’t see it was going to hurt us,” Tingley said.

“You get a ground ball, it’s a double play. Tabby doesn’t run that well. I have no qualms about that move.”

His only misgiving was the pitch to Borders. “That was Jimmy’s only mistake,” Tingley said.

“We wanted a fastball away, but it cut back hard over the plate. Unfortunately, it was his best cutter of the night. Borders crushed it.”

Abbott suffered a similar loss to Cleveland on May 28, 1990. He shut out the Indians for 9 1/3 innings only to lose on a three-run homer by Cory Snyder. He has been through too many painful losses since then to be crushed by one defeat, but his anguish was evident Tuesday.

“A loss is a loss,” he said. “They hurt whether they’re by seven or by one.”