ANGELS : ‘Aggressive’ Mistake Proves Costly

The sounds of spring training, replacement style, continue to echo around the Cactus League. “I got No. 8,” one kid says as he tries to decipher the autograph on his baseball. “Nice play, third,” a fan says.

Few fans know the players. You can barely tell them with a program.

But the show must go on, baseball owners say, so the Angels and Milwaukee Brewers fulfilled their obligation by playing in Compadre Stadium, where Mike Harris’ seventh-inning home run and Bob Kappesser’s squeeze bunt in the eighth were the difference in the Brewers’ 6-4 victory.

The Angels, who entered with a .237 team batting average, managed only six hits and blew a 4-1 second-inning lead. They also committed a glaring mental error, the kind of aggressive mistake you’d expect from these eager replacement players.

Trailing by a run with one out in the eighth, center fielder Randy Hood made an ill-advised dive on Todd Samples’ hit, turning a single into a triple when the ball bounced past him. Kappesser followed with his squeeze for a 6-4 lead.

“You can’t dive when there’s no one behind you,” Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann said. “You don’t want to take his aggressiveness away, but the rule of thumb is with one out and a ball hit straight away, you give him the single. By diving, you’re asking for what eventually happened, a triple. And a two-run lead makes the ninth inning a whole lot different.”

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Kevin Davis, projected by Lachemann as the team’s probable starting shortstop, was one of five players reassigned to minor league camp Monday, trimming the Angel roster to 41.

Davis, who spent 13 years in the minor leagues, has been sidelined since March 2 because of a shoulder injury. He will report to Mesa as a coach for the Angels’ Class-A team at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The other four reassigned players are pitchers Steve Renko Jr., Ken Valdez and Brian Williard, and outfielder Earl Cunningham.

Cunningham was a first-round pick of the Chicago Cubs in 1989 but has never played above the Class-A level because of his 37% strikeout ratio. Cunningham, 6 feet 2, 260 pounds, was the eighth overall pick of that 1989 draft. The No. 7 pick that year? Chicago White Sox star Frank Thomas.

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One of the better story lines of the spring ended Monday when Bryan Smith, a Los Angeles-based FBI agent trying to make the Angels after an eight-year layoff, was released.

Smith, who played in the Dodger organization from 1985-87, didn’t give up a hit in two spring innings, but the left-hander didn’t exactly impress Angel management with a fastball that might not have registered on a radar gun--had the team ever tried to clock it.

Also released Monday were pitchers Richard Doyle, a 31-year-old right-hander who gave up five hits and one run in 2 1/3 innings, and Elvin Rivera, a 28-year-old right-hander who gave up one run and two hits in two innings.

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Notes

The Angels will move forward with plans for Tim Salmon Lithograph Day at Tempe Diablo Stadium Saturday, with the first 1,500 adults in attendance receiving prints of the star outfielder even though Salmon won’t be there. The question is, will 1,500 adults show up? . . . Mike Schooler, the former Seattle Mariner and Texas Ranger reliever who signed with the Angels last week, will likely make his first appearance Wednesday against the Mariners at Peoria. . . . First baseman Tyrone Boykin, who had two hits and two RBIs, strained his left hamstring while stretching for a throw in the bottom of the fourth Monday and will be sidelined until Friday.