Baseball : THEY JUST KEEP ROLLING ALONG : Sutton, Carlton Still Delivering

They play 4,232 games across a six-month season. The weather changes. The names and the games run together.

Let’s see: Is that Alvin Davis or Chili Davis or Eric Davis or Glenn Davis or Jody Davis or Joel Davis or Mark Davis or Mike Davis or Ron Davis or Steve Davis or Storm Davis? It is Bob Tewksbury or Dan Quisenberry? Is it Mark Guidry against Ron Gubicza or Ron Guidry against Mark Gubicza?

Tuesday night, however, there was no mixup in the matchup at Anaheim Stadium.

It was a special moment in a summer of a thousand muddied moments.

It was the camera of the mind focusing on a series of summers in the ‘70s when the Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies battled for playoffs and pennants.

It was Don Sutton and Steve Carlton, the vintage pitchers and wine experts, facing each other in the heat of another important race.

It was the Angels and Minnesota Twins vying for the lead in the American League West with Sutton and Carlton trying to prove that the calendar is right, that it is really August and not yet the December of their careers.

Who’s to say for sure?

Who knows if Sutton and Carlton will ever reach December or that they will recognize it if it comes? A struggling year continued for both in their first matchup since Sutton left the National League late in the 1982 season.

Carlton, in his first start with the Twins, emerged with his 10th loss in 15 decisions this year, allowing 11 hits and 9 runs in 4 innings of the Angels’ 12-3 victory. Sutton, restricted to 100 pitches, went six innings. Steve Lombardozzi hit a three-run homer off him, the 26th he has allowed in 130 innings, and center fielder Gary Pettis was forced to camp on the warning track.

Another month off the calendar?

Angel Manager Gene Mauch had stood by the batting cage before the game started and implied that he will always remember Sutton and Carlton as something of the boys of summer.

“I saw Sutton beat me 16 or 17 times, master me,” Mauch said, recalling his long years as manager of the Montreal Expos.

“And Carlton had the greatest year I ever saw a pitcher have in 1972 (when he was 27-10 for the last-place Phillies).

“They don’t dominate a game like they once did, but I’m sure that tonight’s game has a special ring for both of them. I’m excited because I know they are.”

Excited? Was it possible? Sutton was making his 729th career start, Carlton his 702nd. They have already pitched through Vietnam, Watergate and Irangate. They have pitched through five administrations since Carlton began his major league career in 1965 and Sutton in 1966. Lyndon Johnson was the president then. Now they are 42 and there is another election next year.

Will they be voted in? Cooperstown is a certainty, of course. Sutton is 311-239 and Carlton 323-230. They are not eligible for that election until five years after they retire. Did Tuesday night represent one of the last starts and stops on that road?

The goal-oriented Sutton is 8-9 with a 4.35 earned-run average after opening the season 0-3 and 3-8. He reached 300 last year and has acknowledged having trouble finding another numerical objective, though he reiterated Tuesday night that his overriding motivation has always been a fear of embarrassment. He is not under contract for next year and is unsure of what he wants to do. The President’s chair at his own Sutcorp International is a possibility.

“I’ve thought about it,” he said of the future, “but I don’t know what I want to do yet. I’ll have made a definite decision by the time I make my last pitch in October.”

Carlton wants to pitch three or four more years. He said as much Monday night after reporting to the Twins following his acquisition from the Cleveland Indians. It is Silent Steve’s practice now to speak with the media after joining a new team and occasionally after games in which he pitches. Carlton has gone from Philadelphia to San Francisco to the Chicago White Sox to a spring tryout with the Phillies to the Indians and now the Twins--all in the last 1 1/2 years.

People marvel at the pride that keeps him going. Others say that bad investments put him in a financial hole from which he is now trying to emerge, the reason he continues.

The Twins watched Mike Smithson win only one of his last 14 starts before dealing for Carlton, who was 0-5 in his last seven starts with the Indians. Such is the state of pitching in 1987.

“I don’t know what to expect,” Twins Manager Tom Kelly said, “but I do know that his enthusiasm is still there and that he’s a competitor. You don’t win 300 games and strike out 4,000 people without being a competitor and that alone can rub off. He seems happy to be with a first-place team. Maybe it will represent a new life.”

Carlton and Sutton have had several since their memorable meetings with the Dodgers and Phillies.

The latter smiled while reflecting on his most vivid recollections of the latter.

“He was a good hitter. He wore me out,” Sutton said of Carlton. “He could go out to the mound and dominate you defensively and then beat you with a home run. He was the premier left-hander of my era, maybe the premier pitcher of my era. Tom Seaver from the right side and Carlton from the left were on a ledge above everyone else. And as far as mental intensity and physical conditioning, Carlton represents a benchmark we should all strive for.”

Carlton, with his martial arts regimen, and Sutton, with his careful diet and regular visits to the gym, continue to strive. They just don’t thrive with their previous regularity.

“He and I are not the pitchers we were when we were going 19-9 and 21-3,” Sutton said. “ Hopefully, we can still do a credible job, but you are seeing remnants of what we used to be.”

Sutton said that there was no special magic in a matchup that was Carlton’s first with another 300-game winner and the third for Sutton, who has met Phil Niekro twice.

“It was kind of unusual the first time it happened,” Sutton said. “That was special. Now there’s a regularity to it. You can only walk on the moon so many times.”

Maybe Sutton was saying something there. Not only about matchups with 300-game winners but about the future. His immediate plans call for another start in about five days. Carlton will try again, too. He stood out there with his customary poise as the Angels collected a variety of bloops and flairs among the 11 hits.

Mauch recalled another time and place. He was managing the Expos then while Carlton, pitching for the Phillies, hit Tim Foli in the back of the head with a pitch in apparent retaliation for a pitch that had decked a Phillie hitter, Carlton thinking that Mauch had ordered it.

“Tim took a couple of wobbly steps toward Carlton and I yelled out, ‘never mind, I’ll handle it,’ ” Mauch said. “I ran out to the mound, jumped up and whacked Carlton on the chin. It didn’t even phase him. Don Money then grabbed me from behind and I got beat to a pulp.”

The hitters took after Carlton Tuesday night, rewarding Mauch and Sutton with a decision. It was better that way. In a long season, it was even a little special.