Dodger, Angel Seasons Enter Critical Stage

When Bret Saberhagen was a 20-year-old rookie in 1984, going through his first pennant race with a Kansas City team that won the American League West, he had a 27-year-old left-hander named Bud Black, a 17-game winner for the Royals that season, to guide him through the rigors of summer.

“Watching guys like that, you try to follow their example, how they conduct themselves on and off the field,” said Saberhagen, the 36-year-old Boston Red Sox pitcher who is trying to come back from shoulder surgery this season. “You just kind of feed off the veteran guys.”

As young Angel pitchers Scott Schoeneweis, Ramon Ortiz, Matt Wise, Jarrod Washburn and Seth Etherton sail into uncharted waters, the final seven weeks of a season in which the surprising Angels are still in the playoff hunt, there is no Bud Black-type, no 17-game winner who has been the cornerstone of the pitching staff, at the rotation’s helm.

But the kids do have the Bud Black, the Angels’ 43-year-old pitching coach whose experience over 15 big-league seasons will play an integral role in how the team’s young pitchers handle the pressure of their first pennant race.

Most scouts who have followed the Angels all season don’t believe their pitching will hold up in August and September. To have any chance of winning a wild-card berth--they are a longshot to overtake division-leading Seattle--scouts say the Angel offense will have to score runs in bunches.

“These pitchers will be better off next year for going through this,” one scout said, “but to expect this young of a pitching staff to carry you into the playoffs is unrealistic.”

Black understands the skepticism. In spring training, no one thought the Angels would have enough pitching to finish out of last place, let alone be three games out of the wild-card spot on Aug. 11.

The young pitchers faltered during a 15-game stretch from July 22-Aug. 6, when the Angel rotation managed only two quality starts, and it appeared the Angels would fade quickly out of contention before Washburn, Ortiz and Wise bounced back this week.

Why would anyone think they can win a playoff berth now, with the only two veterans in the rotation, Kent Bottenfield and Ken Hill, traded and released, and the only veteran of any playoff pressure, left-hander Kent Mercker, making his first appearance in three months Saturday night?

“I think we’ve proven over 115 games that we can play with anybody,” Black said. “I have no doubts these guys will perform under pressure, because I’ve seen them pitch good games, and it’s my philosophy that if a guy’s done it once, he can do it again.”

But doing it in June or July in the Metrodome or Kauffman Stadium is not the same as doing it in August and September in Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park, where the atmosphere is electric, the fans hostile, the stakes higher and the glare of the spotlight hotter.

The Angels are in the midst of a grueling 27-game stretch against playoff contenders, which continues when the two-time defending World Series-champion Yankees visit Edison Field tonight, and one of Black’s biggest challenges will be to convince his pitchers every day that it is just another game.

“A young guy will think because Paul O’Neill is in the batter’s box he has to throw harder, or because Derek Jeter is on first base, I have to be quicker to the plate,” Black said.

“In reality, the way he went to the plate in spring training is fine, and the stuff in [triple-A] Edmonton that got him to the big leagues is good enough to get O’Neill out, as long as you execute your pitches and throw them in the right locations.”

Black plans to sit down with his young pitchers soon, probably before next week’s trip to Toronto, New York and Boston, to stress the importance of maintaining the same routine and focus despite the change in atmosphere.

“Players are aware of what’s going on--they read the papers, watch the highlight shows, and they know the situation they’re in,” Black said. “The pitchers are going to be fired up, excited, but we want to make sure they concentrate on the task at hand.

“We don’t want them thinking in broad terms what this is all about. We don’t want them to worry about if they win tonight, they’ll gain a game because someone else lost earlier in the day.”

That thought process helped Saberhagen get through 1984 and thrive in 1985, when the Royals won a championship and Saberhagen was named World Series most valuable player.

“It’s a team game, but you have to focus on what you have to do individually,” Saberhagen said. “If you’re concerned with what everyone else is doing and everything else that’s going on, you’re going to struggle.”

That means Ortiz is going to have to maintain the type of concentration he showed Tuesday night, when he threw a complete-game two-hitter to beat the Red Sox and his idol, Pedro Martinez.

And Wise, for as long as he remains in Anaheim, must show the poise that enabled him to retire 11 in a row after giving up Nomar Garciaparra’s key three-run homer in the third inning Wednesday night.

And Schoeneweis must continue to locate his sinkers on the fringe of the strike zone, so batted balls turn into ground-ball outs instead of hits.

And Washburn (shoulder tendinitis) and Etherton (tired arm) must return from the disabled list and regain the consistency that made them so effective for most of July.

The challenge lies ahead.

Can they handle it?

“To me, a lot of that stuff about pennant-race atmosphere seems a lot more fun,” Schoeneweis said. “If there are 50,000 fans instead of 25,000 fans, that’s great. We’re young, we don’t know any better. Added pressure means nothing to us.

“We’ve had pressure every time we take the mound, because we could get sent down to the minor leagues. We haven’t thought about that, so why should we think about pennant-race pressure?”

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Scouting Report

Games Behind/Division

Angels: 9

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Games Behind/Wild Card

Angels: 3

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Games Remaining

Angels: 47

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Home Games

Angels: 18

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Road Games

Angels: 29

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Games vs. +.500 Teams

Angels: 28

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Games vs. -.500 Teams

Angels: 19

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Opponents’ Winning %

Angels: .510