Angels’ Numbers Add Up to Chaos

The numbers look like something out of the Southeast Regional.

15.6

13.5

12.3

12.0

9.8

9.0

6.8

Sounds like a pretty good little club. Balanced scoring, a couple contributors off the bench. If they can handle the press and tighten up the interior defense, you could see them going a ways. Ball bounces right, who knows, maybe they sneak into the Final Four.

The name of this game, however, is baseball, not hoops, and those are ERAs up there, not scoring averages. The ERAs belong to John Farrell, Frank Tanana, Russ Springer, Hilly Hathaway, Brian Anderson, Andrew Lorraine and John Dopson--candidates, erstwhile and otherwise, for the dueling black holes in the Angels’ camp this spring, also known as the fourth and fifth spots in the starting rotation.

For a good three weeks now, or maybe not so good, Tempe Diablo Stadium has resembled NASA Space Center. A lot of launchings, a lot of unidentified flying objects floating around here. (Several are believed to be fastballs thrown by Craig Lefferts.) After a double dip of defeats Sunday--split squads lost to Colorado, 7-0, and San Diego, 5-2--the team ERA is 8.20.

That’s down from a pregame mark of 8.79, but still nearly three runs higher than Sunday’s 5.3 earthquake in Panorama City.

Bill Bavasi, overseeing his first major league training camp, never knew the Angel general manager’s chair came equipped with seat belt and air bag.

“I’m as alarmed by our pitching today as I was at the opening of camp,” Bavasi says. “I got here alarmed and I stayed alarmed. No difference.”

The shelling has been relentless and the arms-for-hire are shuttled in and out, almost on a daily basis.

Tanana checked out Sunday.

Mark Leiter, waived by Detroit last week, reports Tuesday.

Lorraine, Hathaway and Farrell have been reassigned to the minor league camp.

Anthony Young could arrive at any minute.

Meanwhile, Joe Magrane isn’t scheduled to pitch any time soon, which is where this crisis originated.

“We thought we were going to come to spring training needing one guy,” Angel Manager Buck Rodgers says. “Which isn’t bad. Everybody in the world is looking for a fifth starter.

“But then Magrane has surgery and suddenly, we’re three deep. When you’re looking for a fifth starter and a fourth starter--and your third starter (Phil Leftwich) has 12 starts in the big leagues--you try everybody in the world.”

Thus, the 18-5 scores and the need for “Hi, my name is . . . “ ID tags doesn’t surprise Rodgers.

“If you’re trying out a bunch of people ranging in age from 40 to 22 for two positions, you’re auditioning,” Rodgers says. “You’re going to get that--balls hit all over the place.

“Now, if you start to panic and cut down on your experimentation--’We’ve got to win a game!’--you lose the purpose of what spring training is for.”

The Tanana experiment lasted three starts, yielding an 0-3 record and a 13.50 ERA. Tanana thought his trial was far too short, but time travels faster for a 40-year-old junkballer on his last go-round than a manager with 60% of a starting rotation and 100% of a major league schedule in front of him.

“I knew his stuff was going to be below average, but the thing that disappointed me about Tanana was his lack of control,” Rodgers says. “A wise man told me once, ‘With older pitchers, look for the walks.’ Because when an older pitcher starts having trouble throwing the ball over the plate, I think that’s the beginning of the end.”

So now, it’s come on down, Mark Leiter, let’s see what you got, but you better make it fast. Detroit released Leiter after a mere six innings this spring, and Detroit isn’t exactly drowning in starting pitching, but Rodgers says, “We like Mark Leiter off last year’s reports, so why not spend a couple bucks to look at him and see if he’s better that what we’ve got.”

After that, who knows? Anthony Young’s name continues to bounce off the walls here, the same Anthony Young who lost a record 27 consecutive games for the Mets, and the Angels are seriously considering trading J.T. Snow for him.

Pull the trigger on that deal and the Angels, in effect, will have traded Jim Abbott for Young, Springer and Jerry Nielsen--three pitchers who, on the big league level last season combined for a 2-22 record and a 5.28 ERA.

Pull the trigger on that deal and “We will take some heat,” Bavasi admits. “The press has mentioned it enough that we’ve already taken some heat . . .

“I will tell you right now that if we make a trade for a pitcher, we will end up moving a player that is not too bad and probably going to get better. If we move a guy, it’s probably going to be someone where you say, ‘Ooh, gee, that hurts a little bit.’

“But if we can say, ‘This makes our club better,’ how can you not do it?”

And if the Angels can better their club by trading an everyday player for a pitcher who went 1-16 in 1993, well, that’s about all you need to know about the state of the starting rotation.

“Let’s face it,” Tanana told reporters as he packed his bags, “I’ve seen what you guys have seen.”

With those words, Tanana rolled his eyes.

Was he tracking the flight of an imaginary gopher ball, like the real one Mark Langston served up to Phil Plantier Sunday?

Or was he trying to get a closer view of the team ERA?

Either way, it’s not Tanana’s problem anymore. It’s a shame Nolan Ryan just retired.

Anybody got Andy Messersmith’s home number?