Angels Find It Evens Out in Chicago With Win

CHICAGO — Great moments in Angel history:

--Nolan Ryan’s first four no-hitters.

--Alex Johnson’s 1970 batting title.

--Rod Carew’s 3,000th hit.

--Reggie Jackson’s 500th home run.

--The 1979, 1982 and 1986 American League West championships.

--And now . . . On the 29th day of July, in the city of Chicago, after a 4-2 victory over the White Sox, the 1988 Angels, shocking friend and foe alike, have returned to .500.

That’s .500 as in breaking even. Fifty-one wins. Fifty-one losses.

As late as June 15, they said it couldn’t be done. Barely six weeks ago, the Angels were barely in the AL West, buried in last place at 24-40, and 16 1/2 games out of first. Forty-four days later, they are alone in third place, their ledger evened, having played at a .711 pace (27-11) to erase what the ugliness of April and May had wrought.

You remember April and May? The days of Junior Noboa and Chico Walker. The daily bullpen shellings. Mike Witt losing five consecutive starts, Kirk McCaskill at 2-5 and Wally Joyner with fewer home runs than the released Bill Buckner.

The day in Baltimore when the Angels lost a dreadful game to the 5-31 Orioles and General Manager Mike Port called it “the most embarrassing moment in my 20 years in baseball.”

Port was on hand Friday night in Chicago, this time using words such as “amazing” and “we’re not finished yet.”

“We were spinning our wheels for quite a while,” Port said. “As far back as we were, to reach .500 is an accomplishment, yeah.

“But I don’t think the guys are stopping here. They’re not to the top flight of stairs yet. . . . I think the guys are planning on taking it up in August and September and beyond.”

Let us not get giddy. On an evening of many remarkable achievements--Willie Fraser got a victory and didn’t allow a home run, while Thad Bosley had three hits and drove in the winning run--it was up to Brian Downing, the pragmatic designated hitter, to place things in perspective.

“Getting to .500 was my first goal,” Downing said, “and I kind of thought that it would take the whole year to get there. Maybe we could fight back to where we could get there by late September.

“Not in my wildest dreams did I think we’d get there by late July, based on our performance the first two months. ‘Oh yeah, we’re going to do that in no time.’

“Getting to .500 is nothing to be proud of, on the surface. But considering how we were playing and how we were being treated (by the media)--some of it justified, some of it not--to turn it around this quickly means a lot.”

And guess who took them the final step of the way?

Yes, it was Fraser, on the verge of pitching himself out of the Angels’ starting rotation with an 8.39 earned-run average in May, a 5.36 ERA in June and a 6.83 ERA in July before Friday. It was the same pitcher who shared the major league lead in home runs allowed with 23 and had surrendered at least one home run in each of his last seven starts.

Against the White Sox, Fraser (7-10) wavered early, allowing two runs in the first inning, but never collapsed. He gave up long fly balls to all corners of the park, with left fielder Bosley and center fielder Devon White making saving catches, but he kept the ball in the park. And by the time he left after 6 innings, Fraser was in possession of a 3-2 lead.

Gary Redus opened the game for Chicago by walking, moving to third base on a double by Steve Lyons and scoring on a passed ball by Angel catcher Darrell Miller. Harold Baines drew another walk from Fraser before Greg Walker hit a single to left field for a 2-0 White Sox lead.

By the time he returned to the dugout at the end of the first inning, Fraser was welcomed by a tongue-lashing from Marcel Lachemann, the Angels’ usually mild-mannered pitching coach.

“Lach chewed me out a little bit,” Fraser said, “and he kept at me after the second and third innings, too. He kept saying, “Look, challenge somebody, will you? If they hit it out of the park, they hit it out of the park. Start throwing some strikes and get ahead of some hitters.”

Lachemann’s rare outburst sparked a rare performance by Fraser. Over the last 5 innings he pitched, Fraser allowed just a pair of singles and a double. He received a running catch from White in the third inning and a leaping catch by Bosley in the sixth, but he allowed Chicago no runs, for once putting the Angels in position to win.

Bosley helped get them there with three hits. The second, a ground-rule double in the fourth inning, brought home the Angels’ second run of the game. The third, a ninth-inning single, put him on base, enabling him to score the Angels’ fourth run.

The third run was the important one for the Angels, and Bosley had a hand in that one, too. With Downing on third base with one out in the sixth inning, Bosley lofted a high sacrifice fly to center field, long enough to score Downing and break a 2-2 tie.

Sherman Corbett and Brian Harvey then came on from the bullpen to hold the White Sox hitless the rest of the way. Corbett worked one inning and walked a batter. Harvey finished the last 1 innings, retiring four straight Chicago hitters to earn his 11th save.

Some save, too. The Angels at .500?

“Stranger things have happened,” Port said.

That may be true . . . but not for the Angels, not for a long, long time.

Angel Notes

Wally Joyner had his third consecutive three-hit game, all singles. That gave Joyner 9 hits in his last 14 at-bats, raising his average from .286 to .300. “It’s a .300-.500 day,” Joyner said with a smile. “I feel like I’ve got my good swing back. I can do things with the baseball now. Before, I was just trying to meet the ball. I’m comfortable at the plate again, like I was last year, and I think it shows.” . . . Willie Fraser, on his homerless pitching performance: “I went a whole game without giving up a home run. That’s a feat in itself for me. This is a good step in the right direction. I know what I can do and I want to prove to the guys I can pitch. Now, I have something to work off of. Two days from now, when I go to throw in the bullpen (between starts), I’ll have something to build from.”