Angels Hope Holtz Returns to Majors With Curve in Tow

Reliever Mike Holtz returned to the Angels Tuesday with some amusing tales from the minor leagues--there was the guy who ran around the field naked during one recent game and the promotion with the remote-control cars buzzing through the infield in another.

Manager Terry Collins hopes Holtz brought something else with him--that nasty curve that helped make Holtz one of the league’s most effective left- handed relievers in 1997.

Holtz went 3-4 with a 3.32 earned-run average in 66 appearances last season but lost the snap on his curve this season, going 2-1 with a 5.33 ERA and allowing 16 of 41 inherited runners to score before being demoted to triple-A Vancouver on Aug. 3.

But in 10 games at Vancouver, Holtz had a 1.74 ERA, giving up two earned runs, 10 hits and striking out 18 in 10 1/3 innings.

“I got back to throwing behind-the-count curves, and when I got ahead, it was, ‘Here it is, see you later,’ ” Holtz said. “I got in a good routine. I got the feel and arm angle back on my pitches and gained some confidence.”

Holtz showed Tuesday night that he may have got his groove back, getting ahead of pinch-hitter David Justice, 1-2, with a sharp curve away and an inside fastball in the bottom of the seventh with two on.

Holtz’s then threw a curve, low and away and well out of the strike zone, but Justice lunged and tapped a bloop RBI single into right-center field, his bat coming out of his hands as he hit it, to drive in a run that tied the score, 6-6.

“I put that ball right where I wanted it, but unfortunately the ball hit the top part of the barrel,” Holtz said.

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These are the times that Collins lives for, to be in a pennant race in the final month of the season.

“I think September is a ball,” Collins said. “Every game means something. You come to the park every day and something is on the line.”

The Angels have not thrived in this kind of atmosphere, though. They’re looking for their first winning month of September since 1991, and in five Septembers since (the strike wiped out the last seven weeks of 1994) the Angels are a combined 48-83 (.366).

Included in those statistics was the Great Collapse of 1995, when the Angels were in first place by 11 games on Aug. 3 but lost the American League West to Seattle, going 10-16 that September.

Last season the Angels entered September a game out of first place but went 10-15 amid a series of injuries and the controversy surrounding Tony Phillips’ drug arrest. They finished second, six games behind Seattle.

TONIGHT

ANGELS’ STEVE SPARKS (8-2, 4.31) vs. INDIANS’ BARTOLO COLON (13-7, 3.32) at Cleveland, 4 p.m.

TV--Ch. 9

Radio--KRLA (1110), XPRS (1090)

Update--Indian designated hitter Cecil Fielder got a measure of revenge against his former team Tuesday night, singling in the second inning, going from first to third on Richie Sexson’s single to right-center and scoring on Mark Whiten’s double, the first run of a three-run inning.