BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : ANGELS : Club Has Begun Pulling Up Stakes

The Angels have already begun pulling scouts off the road. Employees have been told to start taking paid vacations to avoid layoffs. Coaches have been told to go home.

The looming Aug. 12 strike has cast a pall over the organization, which is projecting to lose as much as $6 million, but perhaps nothing is more frustrating than the damage it has already created.

If not for the inevitability of a work stoppage, the Angels say they would have already made several moves, including acquiring a closer, that might have enabled them to contend for the American League West.

“That’s the part that’s so frustrating,” Angel President Richard Brown said. “The way it looks, nobody wants to win the division.

“If we had made a couple of moves, the ones we wanted to make, we could have been right back in the race, but the strike really stopped it.”

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Andrew Lorraine probably made his last start Saturday for the Angels, at least until mid-September. He is expected to be sent back to triple-A Vancouver this week because of the pending strike. The Angels want him to continue pitching so that he remains a candidate for the rotation in 1995.

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Why does the Major League Players Assn. believe owners will feel the pain of their Aug. 12 strike, which is almost certain to wipe out two weekends of play?

A year ago at this time, major league baseball drew an average of 35,830 on the Aug. 12 weekend, and an average of 37,433 on the Aug. 19 weekend, for a total of 3.002 million fans spanning 82 dates.

The Chicago White Sox, who start a seven-game home stand beginning Aug. 12, had already sold 250,000 tickets for the first week of games, worth about $2.5 million.