Monday, September 5, 1988/The Battalion/Page 15
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Jays get 9 in bottom 2 innings to beat Rangers
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TORONTO (AP) — George
Bell hit a grand slam in the bot
tom of the ninth inning and
Ranee Mulliniks’ two-run double
highlighted a five-run eighth as
the Toronto Blue Jays rallied
against Texas ace Bobby Witt and
beat the Rangers 9-7 Sunday!
Witt breezed through the first
seven innings, allowing just five
hits as the Rangers took a 6-0
lead. But Tony Fernandez
reached on second baseman Jeff
Kunkel’s fielding error to open
the eighth and Lloyd Moseby
walked.
The first of three wild pitches
by Witt allowed the runners to
move up and Mulliniks followed
with a double to left. Ernie
Whitt’s RBI single, Rick Leach’s
run-scoring groundout and an
other wild pitch by Witt made it
6-5.
Barbaro Garbey gave Witt an
insurance run with an RBI single
in the ninth but the right-hander
failed to retire a batter in the bot
tom of the inning.
Manny Lee struck out to lead
off the ninth but reached first
when Witt threw a wild pitch on
strike three. Tony Fernandez’s
single brought on Mitch Williams,
2-5, who gave up a bunt single to
Lloyd Moseby, loading the bases.
Williams struck out pinch-hit
ter Pat Borders but Bell hit the
reliever’s second pitch 20 rows
deep into the left-field stands. It
was Bell’s 20th homer of the sea
son and sixth career grand slam.
Witt, bidding for his 10th com
plete game in 1 1 starts, has blown
six-run leads in his last two out
ings. John Cerutti, 6-6, worked
the ninth for Toronto.
The Blue Jays have won three
straight and pulled to within 7'A
games of the first-place Tigers in
the American League East. Texas
has lost four straight.
Jim Sundberg had three hits
for Texas, including an inside-
the-park homer.
In the fourth, Sundberg hit a
flare down the right-field line
that Rick Leach dove for and
missed. Second baseman Lee
chased the ball to the fance but
overthrew three potential cutoff
men as Sundberg scored standing
up.
Texas scored twice in the first
inning with four consecutive hits
off Jeff Musselman, who made
just 20 pitches before being re
lieved by Frank Wills.
Scott Fletcher tripled with one
out and scored on a single by Bar
baro Garbey. Ruben Sierra
doubled and Mike Stanley fol
lowed with an RBI single, chasing
Musselman.
The Rangers added another
run in the second when Sundberg
doubled and later scored on Bob
Brower’s double-play grounder.
Geno Petralli had an RBI single
in the fifth and Sundberg made it
6-0 with an RBI single in the
eighth.
Bass, Hatcher lift Astros over Cards 4-3
HOUSTON (AP) — Kevin
Bass hit a two-run homer and
Billy Hatcher drove in two runs,
leading the Houston Astros past
the St. Louis Cardinals 4-3 Sun
day.
Bob Knepper, 13-4, pitched
five innings and allowed three
runs and eight hits. Dave Smith,
the fourth Astros pitcher, got the
last three outs for his 24th save.
Houston scored three runs in
the first inning off Greg Math
ews, 3-5. With one out. Bill Doran
walked and Bass followed with his
13th homer. One out later,
Buddy Bell singled and scored on
Hatcher’s triple.
The Astros made it 4-0 in the
third when Bass reached on a
force play, moved to third on
Glenn Davis’ single and scored on
Hatcher’s sacrifice fly.
St. Louis cut it to 4-1 in the
fourth w'hen Terry Pendleton
singled, moved to third on Jose
Oquendo’s double and scored on
a throwing error by catcher Alan
Ashby.
Jackson wins 20th; Reds rout Cubs 17-0
CHICAGO (AP) — Danny
Jackson became the National
League’s first 20-game winner
this season and went 4-for-5, in
cluding two hits during Cincin
nati’s nine-run fifth inning, as the
Reds routed the Chicago Cubs
17- 0 Sunday.
Luis Quinones paced the Reds’
18- hit attack with a three-run
homer and two-run single. Jack-
son, who scored four runs, en
tered the game with nine hits in
74 at-bats, a . 122 average.
Jackson, 20-6, allowed six hits
and walked none as the Reds won
their fifth straight game and
eighth in their last 11.
The losing pitcher was Calvin
Schiraldi, 8-10, who was relieved
in the fifth inning by Frank Di-
Pino.
Mets have
LA’s number
this season
0100012
NEW YORK (AP) — The Los An
geles Dodgers are running out of
time to dodge the New York Mets.
“October? We have to get there
first,” Dodgers Manager Tom La-
sorda said. “And if we do, we better
not let the Mets get there thinking
they can just walk over us.”
That’s exactly what the Mets have
done this year in a possible preview
of the National League playoffs.
New York won 10 of 11 meetings be
tween the division leaders, holding
Los Angeles to just 18 runs in those
games.
The Dodgers’ performance
against New York is their worst
against any opponent in one season
since moving to Los Angeles in 1958.
“There’s really no explanation for
it. It shouldn’t be that way,” Mets
manager Davey Johnson said.
The reason is simple. It’s pitching.
New York leads the majors with a
2.93 earned run average and has
been especially tough on the Dodg
ers. They have scored more than two
runs in just two games against the
Mets.
Ron Darling shut out Los Angeles
on Friday night while Dwight
Gooden and Randy Myers held the
Dodgers to one run on Saturday.
Sunday’s game, the last scheduled
meeting, was rained out.
The lack of runs got Lasorda
screaming at his hitters as they
walked to the clubhouse after Satur
day’s loss. Johnson, meanwhile, of
fered plenty of praise to his pitchers.
“Our staff is peaking right now,”
Johnson said. “That’s what you hope
for at this time.”
Despite an inconsistent offense,
dominant pitching has helped the
Mets take a nine-game lead over
Pittsburgh in the NL East. Los An
geles held a 5 l /2-game margin over
Houston in the NL West heading
into Sunday.
“I’m not talking about a preview
of anything,” Lasorda said. “You’re
talking about something that is 30
days from now.”
The best-of-seven playoffs begin
in the NL West city on Oct. 4. The
Mets won all six games in Los An
geles this season.
Maybe the Dodgers can rely on
the law of averages. In 1983, they
went 11-1 against Philadelphia in the
regular season and then lost to the
Phillies in four games in the play
offs.
“The Mets definitely have our
number now,” said the Dodgers’
Danny Heep, an ex-Met. “Their
pitching is excellent.”
The Mets’ best past performances
against Los Angeles were 9-3 marks
in 1984 and 1986. New York’s top
all-time effort was 17-1 versus Pitts
burgh in 1986 while the Dodgers’
previous worst was 2-10 against Phil
adelphia last season.
Aggies
(Continued from page 13)
said the Aggie defense’s inability to
pressure quarterback Tom Hodson
was a key to the success of the LSU
offense.
“We couldn’t get to him,” Sherrill
said. “The turf slowed our rush
down, but that’s no excuse.
“They did a good job protecting
Hodson. They had it in their game
plan to get the ball off eraly, and
they were able to do that.”
Nebraska was able to exploit the
Aggie blitz with traps, draws and
quick passes. LSU simply blocked ev
eryone A&M sent. Only once was se
rious pressure applied to an LSU
quarterback.
Sherrill and Defensive Coordina
tor R.C. Slocum both attributed
much of A&M’s poor blitzing effort
on the grass and the rain. Drizzle fell
Hammons
throughout the game, and the field
was thouroughly soaked from con
stant rains the last month.
But Slocum said that wasn’t the
main trouble. He said A&M’s failure
to stop LSU’s run offense was what
gave control of the game to the Ti
gers.
“The passing game was not what
beat us — it was our inability to stop
the run,” Slocum said.
“You can’t blitz when it’s second
and four,” he said. “If you can’t stop
the run, you’ve got big problems. My
philosophy of football is if you can’t
run and you can’t stop the run,
there’s no sense worrying about the
pass.”
Once again, A&M was unable to
control the ball on offense. In the
first half the Aggies only managed
three first downs and had the ball
little more than one-third of the
time
Sherrill said, “Our offense is not
very good, to put it point blank. We
can stand here and say we lost some
big weapons in (Matt) Gurley, (Dar
ren) Lewis and (Rod) Harris. We
don’t have a lot of continuity in the
re.”
It showed up in turnovers. Be
sides Pavlas’ interceptions, the Ag
gies fumbled the ball six times and
were fortunate only to lose one of
them.
Richardson said, “We turned the
ball over way too many times. We
couldn’t move the ball in the air or
on the ground.”
Osgood said, “I thought going in
to the game we could go man for
man with them and run the ball
down their throats.”
Obviously not.
(Continued from page 13)
was the Tiger second- and third-
string tailbacks who both outrushed
the entire A&M team in the first
half.
The Nebraska fiasco could be
termed a result of inexperience and
that unexplainable Aggie jinx in first
games.
Saturday can’t be explained away.
What the Aggies need to come to
grips with is that their team isn’t
nearly as good as they thought it
was.
A national-championship con
tender? Yeah, there was one of them
out there. And they were wearing
purple. The only way you could be
excused for not picking that up is if
you were watching black-and-white.
The Aggies are at the same stage
: as they were last year after the Texas
Tech loss. The offense isn’t working
at all, and the defense is literally
tired of covering for them.
The answers are easily stated. Im-
plimentation, unfortunately, is not
so simple:
• Regain composure. Losing the
first two games of the season has to
affect a team, no matter what they
say in locker-room interviews.
A&M has to realize, cliche though
it may be, that the past is unchange
able. The Aggies need to look at the
two games to see what needs chang
ing, not to see how bad they are.
• Establish a passing game. As if
no one has thought of this yet.
But the obvious sometimes must
be stated. Eventually, if the trend
continues, defenses are going to
completely forego pass protection —
and rightfully so. The result will be a
complete shutdown of the run attack
as well. And obviously you can’t win
without some kind of offense.
• Establish offensive continuity
and composure. The offense has
looked inept eight consecutive quar
ters, particularly under Lance Pavlas
and Bucky Richardson.
Osgood said after the game that
Sherrill told the team at halftime to
get its collective head up, that a 20-
point deficit wasn’t that much —“not
with our offense.”
Obviously Mr. Sherrill knows
more about the game than I. But I
beg to differ with him on this point.
The Fightin’ Texas Aggie Offense is
in the toilet. And it needs to get out
quick.
The first order of business is con
vincing the team that they can still
play. After all, they have a lot of tal
ent, and they have been plagued
with key injuries.
Then, in much the same way as
they did last year, the Aggie coaches
have to decide what it is that the
team is capable of doing, and struc
turing the offense around that. It’s
easy to say “a quarterback for every
attack plan,” but it appears the Ag
gies aren’t going to be able to func
tion offensively in every attack
mode.
Pavlas and Richardson simply
aren’t as ready as we have been led
to believe. The question remaining
is, does Sherrill scrap the first half of
the season and let one or both of
them learn under fire, or does he
bring them along slowly as he has
done in the past.
An obvious solution is Chris Os
good. He has more experience,
more tools, and it would seem more
composure. The result was more
first downs in the third quarter un
der Osgood than the other two could
manage in the entire first half.
You’ve got to think it’s a prime
consideration in Sherrill’s mind:
Start Osgood, and maybe bring in
one or both of the others from time
to time for experience or special cir
cumstances.
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TONIGHT!!
Phi Kappa Theta Fraternity’s
Informational Meeting
MSC Room #206
Speakers include:
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Find out how you could
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