Urbano Blight Hits Angels

DETROIT —  Urbano Lugo never looked worse, which gives you an idea of how bad the Angels’ 15-2 loss to Detroit was Tuesday night.

“It wasn’t exactly a Rembrandt,” Angel Manager Gene Mauch said.

“That was not a Picasso,” Bob Boone said.

It wasn’t even a finger painting, with Lugo making a mess of everything he touched. If anything, it was an exercise in the surreal, with Lugo throwing baseballs that expanded as they neared each Tiger batter and sprouted wings as soon as they were hit.

Lugo lasted only seven outs--an inning sooner than his earliest departure this season. In four previous starts, Lugo had an earned-run average of 9.27. After 2 innings Tuesday, that mark was up to 9.49.

In the first inning, the Tigers scored four runs on five hits and an error.

In the second inning, they added another run when Lou Whitaker singled, advanced to third on a pair of wild pitches by Lugo and scored on an infield out.

But the third inning was the clincher. There, Lugo yielded a three-run home run to Darnell (.133) Coles. This is the same Coles who had four hits in his previous 64 at-bats, who, in frustration over his slump of slumps, picked up a baseball and threw it out of the park Monday night.

Against Lugo, he hit one out of the park. It was Coles’ first home run of the season and may have postponed a widely speculated demotion to the minors.

Instead, Lugo (0-2) may beat him there. At the very least, Lugo doesn’t figure to see the light of another Angel start in the immediate future. In his last appearance, on May 1, Lugo lost to Boston, 12-3. He hadn’t pitched in nearly two weeks, a period in which the Angels went 6-2.

Mauch was asked if it was time to re-evaluate Lugo’s status.

“We definitely have some talking to do,” he said.

Is Lugo scheduled for another start?

“He’s scheduled, but I don’t know if he’ll make it or not,” Mauch said.

“Lach (pitching coach Marcel Lacheman) has been working hard with him, trying to develop a breaking ball. He has too good of a fastball, but it’s too lonesome most of the time. It’s out there by itself too much.”

Boone, who caught Lugo for the first time this season, agreed.

“He got a few (curveballs) over, but it’s not a finishing pitch,” Boone said. “He had to finish hitters off with the fastball. Major league hitters know when that’s coming and they know what to do.”

Added Mauch: “Nothing’s any good unless you get it over the plate. He got into too many three-ball counts. When you’re pitching with a three-ball count, you’re always this close to a base on balls and this close to an extra-base hit. The hitters just get more aggressive and more aggressive.”

By the time Lugo left, the Angels were down, 8-2. Mauch turned the game over to Gary Lucas, another struggling pitcher. And by the time Lucas completed his 2-inning stint, the Angels trailed, 14-2, and his ERA had risen to 12.82.

The Angels supported this sort of pitching with as many errors as hits--four--as Detroit’s Dan Petry (1-3) and Mike Henneman combined to hold the Angels without an earned run.

On this night, the Angels’ best offense producer was Mauch. Wielding a rule book instead of a bat, Mauch brought home the Angels’ first run and set up the second by catching Heath red-handed with one of the rarest infractions ever seen in small print.

In the second inning, Heath, the Tiger catcher, lost a ball in the dirt and retrieved it by scooping it up with his mask. “I’ve been doing it for nine years,” Heath said.

But he never did it in front of Mauch. Mauch emerged from the Angel dugout, citing baseball rule 7.05, Paragraph D, which prohibits the retrieval of the ball with any piece of equipment other than a fielder’s glove. Field a ball with a cap or a catcher’s mask and it’s a two-base error.

At the time, Mark McLemore was on second base and Brian Downing on first. After much discussion, the umpiring crew concurred with Mauch--waving home McLemore and sending Downing to third. Downing later scored on an error by Coles on a grounder by Doug DeCinces.

“I’d never seen it before,” Mauch said. “I read it in a book someplace.”

That was more than Detroit Manager Sparky Anderson could say.

“I didn’t know it was a rule,” Anderson admitted. “But no one knows the rules better than Gene Mauch. He could teach a seminar on it.”

Mauch’s sense of recall helped earn the Angels two runs. But unless Heath caught the rest of the game with his mask, there was no way the Angels were going to overcome a deficit that was 4-0 after one inning, 8-2 after three and 14-2 after five.

This may have been Lugo’s last stand, but he didn’t receive much assistance.

“As a pitcher, when errors are made behind you, it can be tough,” said first baseman Mark Ryal, who committed two on his own. “He’s struggling, but we have to try and help him as much as possible.

“He was throwing his game, but they were hitting him. Everything they hit was falling in. What can you do?”

That is a question Mauch will ponder when considering the No. 5 spot in his starting rotation. The next move is his.

Angel Notes By a show of hands, John Candelaria became the Angels’ starting pitcher for tonight’s game. Wanting to know if Candelaria’s back could withstand an outing on the mound, Gene Mauch went to Candelaria, held out his arm and pointed his thumb up and then down. What’s it going to be? Candelaria flashed back with thumb’s-up, so Mauch penciled him in. “I don’t know how long he’ll be able to go, but he’ll be there at the start,” Mauch said. . . . Butch Wynegar was a late scratch Tuesday when the pain in his big right toe worsened. Wynegar will have his foot examined by Dr. Lewis Yocum on Thursday’s off-day. Also scheduled to visit Yocum Thursday: Jack Howell (back), Donnie Moore (ribs) and Candelaria. “We’ll probably take a van,” Angel publicist Tim Mead quipped. . . . Wynegar was replaced in the starting lineup by Bob Boone, still queasy with a stomach virus. By the seventh inning, however, the Angels were down to one catcher--Darrell Miller--after Boone took a pitch in the dirt by Urbano Lugo off his right wrist in the third. Boone immediately ran into the dugout to have the wrist taped and played three more innings with it before giving way to Miller. . . . Add Rule 7.05: Boone said he had never seen it called during a game before. “I know you can’t do it,” he said, “but I didn’t know the penalty for it. I’ll know next time.” And from Detroit catcher Mike Heath, the guilty party: “I knew it was a rule. I thought I could get away with it.”

Dick Schofield’s chronic groin injury was acting up again and he had to play Tuesday’s game with his upper thigh heavily taped.