Angels Come Up Short but Leave Impression : Baseball: Leiter pitches six shutout innings; Shawn Green helps Blue Jays to a 3-0 victory.

By MIKE DiGIOVANNA

April 30, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

TORONTO — Chili Davis likes this Angel lineup. So does Tony Phillips. Heck, even Toronto pitcher Al Leiter, who pitched six shutout innings to lead the Blue Jays to a 3-0 victory over the Angels on Saturday, was impressed.

“They have a nice mix of young guys and veterans, and they have some power potential,” said Leiter, who gave up two hits before 35,278 in the Skydome. “They could be explosive. I don’t see any reason why they can’t contend in their division.”

All this fawning over a team that managed only five hits Saturday. Had they actually scored a few runs, would Leiter have compared the Angels to the New York Yankees? The Atlanta Braves?

Whatever potential this Angel offense has, it went unfulfilled. Leiter, a left-hander whose brother, Mark, pitched for the Angels last season and is now a San Francisco Giant, jammed the Angels with a cut fastball that broke several bats and resulted in 13 ground-ball outs. Only one Angel reached third base against Leiter.

“He’d throw that cut fastball on 2-0 and 3-1 counts and it looked like a good hitting pitch,” Angel shortstop Gary DiSarcina said. “Then it would move in just enough to miss the barrel of your bat, and he’d saw you off.”

The performance completed a great weekend for the Leiter family. Mark gave up two hits in six innings Friday night as the Giants beat the Florida Marlins, 4-0, and Al matched that Saturday.

Brad Cornett followed Leiter with two scoreless innings and Darren Hall pitched a scoreless ninth for the save. Angel right-hander Scott Sanderson, who gave up eight singles but only one run in five innings, took the loss.

The Blue Jays backed Leiter with three top-notch defensive plays, including two by third baseman Ed Sprague, who dived to his left to snag Phillips’ grounder in the first and to his right to field Davis’ grounder in the sixth, turning both into outs at first.

In the fifth, second baseman Roberto Alomar charged DiSarcina’s bunt and, like a hockey player one-timing a slap shot, swatted the ball with his glove about 10 feet to first baseman John Olerud barely ahead of DiSarcina.

Toronto’s offensive star was a kid who used to sneak into Anaheim Stadium nine years ago and still could pass for a clubhouse boy.

Right fielder Shawn Green, a 22-year-old from Tustin High, had a run-scoring single in the second, singled in the fourth, was hit by a pitch and scored in the sixth and walked in the eighth.

It marked Green’s first multiple-hit game in the major leagues and the first time he started a game that was televised back home.

“Knowing my family and friends were watching made this a little more special,” said Green, a first-round pick in 1992.

Green, a left-hander platooning with Mike Huff, is feeling more confident and comfortable in Toronto than he did last season, when he was called up in June and hit .091 in 33 at-bats.

He soon returned to triple-A Syracuse, where he batted .344 with 13 home runs and 61 runs batted in and was named International League rookie of the year.

“They have all these stars here, and to be in a lineup with guys like Paul Molitor, Joe Carter, Roberto Alomar and John Olerud was kind of overwhelming,” Green said. “My first few games I had so much adrenaline I was just flying around the outfield. . . .”

“Everything this season is not so new and exciting, it’s just more of a baseball game,” Green said. “I’ve adjusted to being here and feel like I’m blending in.”

Although he’ll be able to walk into the Anaheim Stadium clubhouse with his Blue Jay teammates this season, Green said he could still sneak in without a ticket.

“But I can’t tell you how,” he said. “That would ruin it for my friends.”