Dickson Keeps Struggling as White Sox Rout Angels

Jason Dickson held the Angel rotation together in the first month of the 1997 season, when the rookie right-hander won four of his first five decisions to ease the loss of the injured Chuck Finley and Mark Gubicza.

One month into 1998, Dickson is fighting to hold onto his job.

The Chicago White Sox, behind Albert Belle’s six runs batted in, pounded Dickson and the Angels in a 12-1 victory before 34,920 in Edison Field Sunday, bringing an Angel team that had won nine of its last 10 games down to earth with a resounding thud.

Dickson’s landing was just as hard. He was rocked for six runs on seven hits and departed after Belle’s three-run homer in the fifth with a 1-4 record and 9.13 earned-run average.

The 25-year old has been giving up first-half touchdowns on a pace to rival the New Orleans Saints. In three of his five starts, he has been ripped for six runs or more in 5 1/3 innings or less. In another start, he gave up five runs in 3 1/3 innings.

Opponents are hitting an American League-high .366 off Dickson. The control specialist who was 13-6 through last August has not been fooling many opponents since then: Dickson is 1-7 with a 7.76 ERA dating back to last September.

“I have good enough stuff to pitch in the big leagues, and I feel as good as I’ve ever felt,” said Dickson, an all-star in 1997 who had elbow and shoulder problems last summer. “I don’t have any answers. It’s puzzling. You start asking yourself, ‘What can you do?”’

“I know I made a lot of good pitches [Sunday night]. It’s frustrating when you make one mistake out of seven pitches and they jump all over it. Obviously it can’t go on like this for a whole season. It’s hard to take sometimes.”

Manager Terry Collins said “it’s not necessarily time to get concerned about Dickson,” but if Omar Olivares continues to pitch well in Jack McDowell’s absence, Collins would have the option of replacing Dickson in the rotation with Olivares when McDowell comes off the disabled list next week.

“I can’t speculate that far in advance,” Collins said. “I’m just worried about Allen Watson [tonight’s starter] . . . Jason is getting too much of the plate, too much of the strike zone, and one thing about him, when he makes mistakes, they’ve been hit.”

Dickson appeared to regain his impressive rookie form last Tuesday night in Baltimore, where he gave up one run on eight hits in 6 2/3 innings to gain his only victory, and he said he pitched exactly the same way Sunday night.

“I was aggressive with my fastball and had the same game plan,” Dickson said. “Some days you just don’t get what you’re looking for.”

Dickson’s offerings seemed to be just what the struggling White Sox were looking for. They mauled Dickson for three runs on five hits in the first two innings and knocked him out with Belle’s fifth-inning homer, which pushed the lead to 6-0.

Belle also had an RBI single in the first, a sacrifice fly in the third and an RBI double in the sixth to tie his career high for RBIs in a game.

Charlie O’Brien added a two-run homer off reliever Rich Robertson in the fifth to give the White Sox an 8-0 lead before the Angels finally broke through with Jim Edmonds’ solo homer in the bottom of the fifth.

But Chicago poured it on in the sixth, adding another three runs off Robertson to make it 11-1, and rookie right fielder Magglio Ordonez topped off his four-hit night with a solo homer in the ninth off Greg Cadaret to make it 12-1.

Leadoff batter Ray Durham, who has hit safely in 20 of his last 21 games, had three hits and scored twice, and Frank Thomas added two hits and three runs for the White Sox.

The beneficiary of Chicago’s 15-hit attack was right-hander Jason Bere, who missed most of the 1996 and ’97 seasons because of an elbow injury but looked strong Sunday night, giving up one run on five hits and striking out five in 5 2/3 innings to gain his first victory of the season.

The lone bright spot for the Angels: Thanks to Cadaret’s four-inning, 72- pitch, one-run effort, their key relievers are well rested for tonight.

“I tip my hat to Cadaret,” Collins said. “It was a tough situation, but he ate up innings and allowed us to save our bullpen.”