BASEBALL DAILY REPORT : AMERICAN LEAGUE : Athletics’ Welch Struck Out Fear

Bob Welch can remember clearly the day when doubt overwhelmed him and he feared he would be merely a spectator this season.

“Probably about Jan. 27,” he said, referring to when he suffered the first of three injuries that sidelined him for long stretches this season. “I hurt myself then and didn’t know where it was going to. And the third time I went on the (disabled list). That was pretty bad. The second time wasn’t bad.

“The third time, I was getting concerned about whether (Oakland Manager Tony La Russa) felt I had enough of a chance to compete this season and whether that would be good enough to be put in this position. I wanted to pitch enough to at least I would be in position to be considered for this.”

Despite making a career-low 20 starts, Welch pitched well enough to compile an 11-7 record--the sixth consecutive season he hit double figures in victories and 10th time in 11 seasons--and earn a start today in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series. He will oppose Jack Morris, the starter and loser in Toronto’s 4-3 series-opening loss.

Welch’s medical woes began with a strained back and later included a sore left knee, tendinitis in his left shoulder and pain in his right elbow. He went onto the DL for the third time Aug. 8 because of the elbow, but he managed to make three more starts.

“I feel pretty good physically, I really do,” said Welch, whose appearance today will be his eighth in the playoffs, extending his own record. “I probably won’t be sleeping a whole bunch (Saturday night), but with two kids, you don’t sleep much anyway.”

One factor limiting his sleep is the prospect of facing Morris. “I’ve been an admirer of his for years. I remember watching him in the ’84 World Series,” Welch said. “I went as a fan because we (the Dodgers) weren’t in it that year. He’s been a big horse for years before he ever pulled into Toronto or Minnesota. He’s a very special pitcher.”

Toronto’s Dave Winfield put Welch in that same category. “I don’t care what kind of record he had, we know what he’s made of, and that ain’t chopped liver,” Winfield said. “They have to face Jack, but we’re facing one of the best, too.”

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Blue Jay catcher Pat Borders has had a fine series offensively and defensively, but even he wasn’t immune to the plague of mistakes that descended on the Oakland Coliseum Saturday.

Borders’ miscue came in the bottom of the seventh inning. He was catching Duane Ward when Terry Steinbach swung and missed a pitch for strike two and Borders began to run off the field, thinking it was strike three. He got three or four steps toward the Toronto dugout before sheepishly coming back to his crouch behind the plate, where home plate umpire Al Clark greeted him with a sympathetic pat on the back.

“I thought the first two pitches were strikes. I don’t know which one he called a ball,” Borders said. “I heard him make a sound, but the noise he makes for a ball and a strike are so similar I didn’t know he called one a ball. I guess I’ve got to listen a little better to what he’s saying.”

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Until his second-inning single, Candy Maldonado was the only Blue Jay starter without a hit in the series. His fifth-inning home run ended a streak of 69 playoff and World Series at-bats without a homer. “You have to have faith,” he said of his postseason failures. “You have to tell yourself to do the things you always do.”