Ruppert Jones Goes Up Swinging : He Breaks Away From ‘Take Syndrome’ With 2 Doubles

Ruppert Jones likes to say that he never worries about anything outside of “my own little atmosphere.” He says he refuses to let anything he can’t control be a distraction.

For the last two months of baseball--September of 1985 and this April--his hitting has been driving him to distraction, though. His success with the bat is definitely a matter within his atmosphere, even when his batting average is downright subterranean.

Jones hit .090 last September and staggered to a .121 start this season, but he ripped a couple of doubles Wednesday and drove in two runs and scored another as the Angels beat Oakland, 5-0, at Anaheim Stadium.

“I enjoyed watching Ruppert Jones hit and have some fun tonight,” Manager Gene Mauch said. “Ruppert hasn’t had a lot of fun lately.”

Jones, who has played in 13 of the Angels 16 games, has managed to score 12 runs, mainly because he’s drawn 11 walks.

“Yeah,” Mauch said, “but players like to hit . . . best as I remember.”

Jones doesn’t mind scoring runs and he talks a lot about the different ways you can help your team, but he thinks all those walks may have prolonged his slump.

“I haven’t been swinging aggressively,” Jones said. “I’ve been taking a whole lot of pitches. I’ve fallen into a ‘take syndrome.”’

Jones figured he knew the cure, so Wednesday afternoon he came out to the park early and took 20 minutes of batting practice where he swung at every pitch, high, low, inside, outside, up or down.

“I figure if you swing the bat, you’ve always got a chance,” he said.

Jones got a big chance in the first inning Wednesday. Gary Pettis doubled and then scored when the A’s Jose Canseco played hot potato with Wally Joyner’s fly ball to left and dropped it on the warning track. Reggie Jackson was hit by a pitch and, after Brian Downing hit into a double play and Doug DeCinces walked, Jones came up with runners on the corners.

With one hit in his last 16 at-bats, Jones didn’t waste any time trying to let his swing change his luck. He stroked a line drive that rolled to the wall in left center and the Angels were ahead, 3-0.

In the sixth, Jones lined a one-out double to right-center and eventually scored on Rob Wilfong’s grounder to second.

“You gotta figure tomorrow’s gonna be a better day or there’s no reason to get out of bed and come to work,” Jones said. “I’ve always had determination and desire . . . that’s what life is all about.”

Survival on the diamond has to do with success, however, and Jones’ contributions have not gone unnoticed. Mauch has stayed with Jones despite his batting woes because “he’s a good player and I want him in there. . . . I don’t think I have to have another reason.”

That one’s certainly good enough for Jones.

“He (Mauch) always tells me, ‘Go beat somebody,”’ Jones said. “There’s more to the game than just hitting. If you start thinking that, you limit yourself.

“I can do a lot of things to help the team, to create a positive attitude around myself and my teammates, things that don’t show up in the box score.”

What Jones accomplished Wednesday was evident in the box--and final--score, and as long as the Angels are winning, he’ll be happy.

“When you’re winning, things like slumps are played down,” he said. “When you’re losing, all that is magnified.

“I’ll take not hitting and winning any day,” he said.

Mauch thinks it would be fun to see Jones match his 21 home runs and 67 RBIs of 1985 and the Angels win the two extra games that would have boosted them into the league’s championship series last season.