BASEBALL DAILY REPORT : ANGELS : Club Is Said to Be at a Critical Point

General Manager Bill Bavasi and assistant Tim Mead, scheduled to join the team today for the duration of their trip, will immediately attempt to formulate a plan to help the Angels.

The Angels, 4-1 losers Monday to the Boston Red Sox, have lost 23 of their last 34 games. They not only are last in the American League West, but have the worst record in the league.

“I think this is probably the most critical time of the season,” Angel President Richard Brown said. “We’re by no stretch of the imagination out of it, but we’d like to do something.

“We know we have some outstanding young talent, but we’d like to add a veteran or two. We have to get a little more punch in the lineup and some pitching. The trouble is that most teams are not willing to give up a lot because the season may be wiped out after the All-Star game.”

Said Bavasi: “I don’t have any problems trading kids for a proven veteran, but you have to be careful. You try to operate as if there won’t be a strike, but talking to other people, you don’t know whether this is July or September.”

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Chuck Hernandez, Angel pitching coach, left the team to be with his wife, Donna, who gave birth by Caesarean section to their second child Sunday night.

Their son was expected to be born July 8, but Donna began experiencing discomfort Sunday and was taken to the hospital. Hernandez took a flight after the game Sunday to join her in Tampa, Fla.

The boy is in intensive care for treatment of a rapid heart beat, but Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann said that Hernandez told him Monday morning that the baby is expected to be fine.

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Angel right fielder Tim Salmon conceded that he genuinely was worried for a while that Chili Davis was going to decline his invitation to the All-Star game.

“He kept telling me he was going to turn it down and send me,” Salmon said, “but I didn’t want that. Sure, I’d love to go to the All-Star game some time in my career, but I want to go because I was voted in or selected by the manager, not by a technicality.

“I told Chili, ‘Hey, you’re the All-Star from this team. You deserve it. You go. I’ll have my day.”