Baseball / Ross Newhan : Braves Seem to Be Playing a Winning Game of ‘Simmons Says’

The hiring of Chuck Tanner as manager?

The return of Bruce Sutter from shoulder surgery?

The shift to a younger, home-grown pitching rotation?

The new physical stability of Bob Horner?

Yes.

All of those developments have been factors in the revival of the Atlanta Braves as a contender in the National League West, but Dale Murphy believes there is another, more important consideration.

Ted Simmons.

“He’s the reason we’re winning,” Murphy said of the part-time catcher, first baseman and third baseman who was acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers in a March trade for catcher Rick Cerone.

Murphy said Simmons has provided Atlanta with the clubhouse leadership that was missing since the Sarge, Gary Matthews, went to Philadelphia in 1981.

“He’s got that bulldog attitude,” Murphy said. “He makes us think about winning.

“We’ve needed someone like him since Matthews left. He’s taken over the clubhouse.”

Said Simmons:

“I knew when I came here that part of my role was in the clubhouse.

“I’ve been with winning teams. I know what it takes to win.”

Simmons also knows that a little levity never hurts, which is why he and the other members of a vastly improved bench are now wearing World War II flying helmets and goggles in the dugout.

Simmons calls them the Bomb Squad, capable of delivering in an emergency.

During a six-month season, not all emergencies are on the field.

Sparky Anderson decided he wanted to manage another 10 years. He presented the idea to his wife, Carol, last weekend. She said her only concern was with his health and enthusiasm. They agreed that there was no problem with his health, but that his enthusiasm had been lagging, diluted some by the inconsistency and injuries his Detroit Tigers had experienced in the last two years.

The Andersons decided that a change in attitude and approach was necessary, that he would demand more enthusiasm and animation from himself and his team, that there would be more life in the dugout and on the field.

“I had been miserable,” Anderson said. “It was time to get into the pits again.”

The awakened Tigers responded with five straight wins entering a weekend series with Seattle.

Said Darrell Evans:

“The attitude translates big onto the field. It makes us feel we still have hope. We’d get behind before and feel we’d need a miracle to win.”

Added Dave Collins:

“There’s now a lot of positive reinforcement. The attitude is different. We’re no longer dead on the field.”

Joaquin Andujar finally shed the nice-guy role the other day.

He blamed the Oakland A’s emphasis on conditioning for the hamstring pull that has caused him to miss two starts after having never missed any because of injury during five years with St. Louis.

“I need to pitch every three days,” Andujar said. “Five days is too long. This is why I’m hurting. They changed everything on me. I’m not used to exercising.

“Exercise is good for some people and bad for some people. I hate to run long distances. It’s hard when they change the whole season after 17 years. It’s too late for change for me, but they changed everything and now I’m a cripple.”

Andujar’s injury is nothing compared to the discovery of a ruptured disc that threatens to sideline Oakland center fielder Dwayne Murphy for the remainder of the season and a recurrence of an elbow irritation that has put relief star Jay Howell on the disabled list for the second time.

In fact, the A’s bullpen problems rival those of the Angels. Howell, who saved 29 games last year, is 0-4 with a 5.89 earned-run average. Steve Ontiveros, who saved eight games as a rookie complement to Howell, is 0-2 with a 5.60 ERA and his own list of physical problems. As of Friday, the A’s bullpen had a 2-10 record and a 5.10 ERA. Some relief.

The New York Daily News headline on the morning after Dwight Gooden beat the Dodgers Wednesday night, ending his three game winless streak:

“Doc Recovers.”

Said New York Mets Manager Davey Johnson:

“The season can continue, right? Dwight’s won. Everything is right again.”

Johnson had refused to feed the media flames surrounding Gooden’s longest winless streak.

He refused to answer questions pertaining to Gooden.

“I didn’t want to lend credence to what crazy things people were thinking,” he said. “The more you talk about it, the worse it gets. Right now, it’s a phenomenon every time he gets a pimple on his rear.”

The diamond and garnet rings that the St. Louis Cardinals received for winning the National League championship last year have been recalled by the jewelry company that made them.

A flaw in the construction will cost the Texas firm about $300,000.

But relief pitcher Jeff Lahti, for one, would rather keep his as it is.

“The way we’re playing, they might not let us have them back,” he said.

Some marvelous material emerged from the Tuesday night fog out at Municipal Stadium in Cleveland. Boston won, 2-0. The game was called in the sixth inning, with the fog so thick that Boston pitcher Mike Brown said:

“It hurt my location because I just wasn’t sure where my location was.”

Added Oil Can Boyd:

“Hey, when you build a building on the ocean, what do you expect? You expect fog. They (the Indians) should blame themselves for building it on the ocean.”

The Erie Ocean?

George Brett collected his 2,000th career hit in a 2-1, 17-inning Kansas City win over Chicago last Sunday, his only hit in seven at bats.

Said Brett:

“It was a day I’ll always remember, then try to forget as quickly as possible.”

He would love to forget the entire month.

His .226 average, 2 home runs and 9 runs batted in through Thursday represented his worst May since hitting .216 with 1 home run and 5 RBI as a 1974 rookie.

When the Philadelphia Phillies completed a 2-7 trip on which they struck out 77 times, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Peter Pascarelli wrote:

“On a Sunday when people across America were holding hands, the Phillies completed their fanned across America tour.”

The preseason question concerning the New York Yankees stemmed from the suspect nature of their starting pitching.

On the first day of June, there are still no answers. The Yankees have pitched only three complete games and one shutout.

They have won with good relief pitching and generally solid hitting.

Example:

In winning six of their last seven games through Wednesday, the Yankees scored 42 runs. None of the six wins went to a starting pitcher, though in each of those six games the starter was given leads of from 3-1 to 7-0.

Manager Lou Piniella ultimately went to his bullpen 14 times in the six games.

“We can win this way for a while but you can’t over the course of a season,” he said. “You can’t keep going to the bullpen all the time. Not this early.”

Routed by San Diego, 10-1, Wednesday night, Montreal Manager Bob Rodgers used infielder Vance Law to pitch the ninth.

Law, who has now appeared at every position in the major leagues except catcher, retired three straight hitters, prompting Tony Gwynn, the NL’s leading hitter, to say, “He had better stuff than anybody else who pitched against us tonight.”