Detroit Goes on Strike for Olivares

Omar Olivares had pitched seven or more innings and given up only two runs in his two previous outings, but Manager Terry Collins was a little worried that his sinker hasn’t been breaking as sharply as usual.

“We need him to have his best sinkerball, especially when we get to New York where they have that long grass and all those left-handed power hitters,” Collins said. “Hopefully, he’ll get them to hit ground balls instead of fly balls.”

In the early going Thursday night, many of the Tigers would’ve settled for either.

Olivares, a ground-ball pitcher who usually doesn’t overpower anyone, struck out the first four batters he faced and finished with seven strikeouts in eight innings as the Angels routed Detroit, 13-2, in front of 27,548 at Edison Field.

“I guess the ball was falling in the right place,” Olivares said of his early impersonation of Randy Johnson, “but I had to go back to getting ground-ball outs, that’s what I do.”

The only smudges on Olivares’ record came when he grooved a 3-2 pitch to Tony Clark with two out and none on in the fourth--Clark deposited it over the right-field fence--and when Frank Catalanotto tripled in the eighth and scored on a chopper to first.

Other than that, it was pretty much a stroll in a Disney park for Olivares. After all, who needs a nasty sinker when you’ve got an 11-run lead halfway through the game?

“[The big lead] doesn’t make you relax,” Olivares said, “but it lets you concentrate on making your pitches without worrying about it being a close game.”

The Angels were having no problems zeroing in on the deliveries of the first two Tiger pitchers, starter Brian Powell and reliever A.J. Sagar. They didn’t hit any balls over the fences, but they slammed four balls off the walls and batted around in the third and fifth innings.

The first five batters in the Angel lineup had made four trips to the plate by the time Detroit’s Deivi Cruz had his second at-bat. All nine Angel starters had scored at least once by the end of the fifth.

Thirteen runs and a standout performance by their starter--Olivares did get nine ground-ball outs and one double play--and what does Collins want to talk about? Defense.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been involved with a better defensive performance by an infield,” he said. “Troy Glaus played as good at third as you can. [Gary] DiSarcina was DiSarcina at short and [Randy] Velarde made a couple of great throws at second that prove his elbow is totally healthy.

“Sure, we scored a lot of runs, but the way we caught the ball, we’re going to win a lot close games too.”

The Angels scraped out a run in the first on a walk, a bouncer through the infield and a groundout, but they abandoned the killing-you-softly approach after that, however, bludgeoning their way to six runs in the third and five in the fifth.

Velarde, who had only four hits in 29 at-bats before Thursday night, singled to left with one out in the third, went to third on Darin Erstad’s bloop double down the left-field line and scored on a wild pitch. After Tim Salmon walked, it looked as if Powell was throwing batting practice. Jim Edmonds ripped a run-scoring single to right and Garret Anderson and Glaus followed with back-to-back 385-foot doubles off the top of the scoreboard in right field. An out later, DiSarcina lined a run-scoring single to left.

Sagar replaced Powell in the fourth and got a one-inning respite before becoming an unwilling party to the Angels’ hit parade. Anderson led off the fifth with his second double off the right-field wall, Glaus and Matt Walbeck singled, and DiSarcina doubled to left-center. The Angels increased their lead to 12-1 on a run-scoring single by Erstad and Salmon’s sacrifice fly.

The victory, which kept the Angels 1 1/2 games ahead of Texas atop the American League West, was just what the manager ordered. Before Thursday’s game, he talked about the importance of winning this week at home before heading East for 10 games against three teams--New York, Boston and Cleveland--with the best records in the league.

“When you have a chance to win some games, well, you’ve got to approach this home stand as big,” he said.

For one night anyway, the Angels came up huge on three fronts, on the mound, at the plate and in the field.

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ANGEL REPORT, C11