Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 47

Chicago Tribune, Sunday, June 27. 1982 Section 4 3 Baseball Tribune photo By Dv Nystrem base easily and just as easily was tagged out. St. Louis' Willie McGee js at the mercy of Cub second baseman Bump Wills after oversliding second in the third inning of Saturday's second game. He had stolen the Cubs let two more slip away to Cardinals rf Tif Bob Verdi The shortstop rested in the second game until Johnstone a hit Gaylord Perry, and now just 20 victories short of that magic number, with a 280-235 major league record over 24 seasons.

THE SLENDER left-hander, who still looks like a walking commercial for a fitness salon, yielded a run-scoring single to Keith Moreland in the first inning of the nightcap. Then he blanked the Cubs through the sixth before giving way to Doug Bair and Sutter. Manager Whitey Herzog of the Cards could only shake his head in wonderment. "Amazing," he summed up Kaat's performance, along with the visitors' escape act in both games. "We score the first run of the second game on two chalk doubles by Oberkfell and Gene Tenace in the second inning.

I'm just glad that shortstop Bowa didn't come up again until Sutter was in the game." Bowa had stretched his hitting streak to seven games with two hits in the opener, giving him nine straight hits as a right-handed batter. But he batted from the left side when righthander Sutter relieved LaPoint in the ninth, and flied out. Oberkfell in the opener and another by shortstop Ozzie Smith in the second game, saved the Cards even more emphatically than Sutter, although he wrapped up both victories by cooling off Larry Bowa's smoking bat. THE CUBS LEFT the bases loaded in the seventh inning and again in the eighth of the nightcap, but that wasn't too surprising. The fans got the impression that it wasn't their day much earlier, when Bird retired 17 straight batters in the opener and still lost a dropping his record to 4-8.

"They hit two balls hard all game and score four runs off me," said the frustrated Bird after his best showing the season. The home team's failure to back up good efforts from Bird and Smith enabled the struggling first-place Cards to break a three-game losing streak despite providing only six hits for LaPoint and a mere four for Kaat none after the third inning. A genuine geriatric marvel, Kaat relies on guile, breaking stuff and an occasional sneaky fast one. He's as old as 300-game winner By Bob Logan THE CUBS FINALLY got what they've been crying for two well-pitched games in a row. Just when everybody figured it wouldn't happen in the same season, Doug Bird and Lee Smith turned the trick on the same day.

But not many of the 29,357 Wrigley Field fans went home crying in their beer after the St. Louis Cardinals beat Bird and Smith to sweep Saturday's double-header, 4-1 and 2-1. A lot of them were Cardinal boosters and the rest took it stoically, aware that this edition of the Cubs will find some way to lose. The Cubs were victims of the generation gap this time, shackled by 22-year-old Dave LaPoint and 43-year-old Jim Kaat. The Cardinal left-handers escaped jams until the late innings, when Bruce Sutter entered to get two saves, taking the N.L.

lead with 17. The Cubs outhit the visitors in both games, although they wasted enough scoring chances to win a triple-header, leaving a total of 20 runners stranded on the bases. Two brilliant defensive plays, one by third baseman Ken called on to face Sutter in the eighth, again with the bases loaded and two out. This time, Bowa tapped back to the mound, ending the Cubs' last threat of the day. THE CARDS MADE the most of their limited opportunities, going ahead to stay in the third inning of each game.

Both times, Keith Hernandez brought the decisive run home with a two-out single. The Cubs had their chances to overcome Hernandez's heroics. With the wind blowing in on a fog-shrouded, chilly Saturday, the crying need was for a few well-placed singles. Oberkfell's sensational sixth-inning stab of a Jody Davis liner in the opener helped end the catcher's hitting streak at 14 games and prevented the Cubs from tying the score. It came one play after Jay Johnstone was thrown out at the plate on Gary Woods' double.

It turned things around just as firmly a9 shortstop Ozzie Smith's incredible play from deep in the hole to kill a bases-full Cub threat' in the nightcap. sight? is reiiei in -1 1 i Sox looking for some help on and off field THE MAN'S AMAZING, and better yet, he's getting younger every day. "Will you straighten something out for me?" Jay Johnstone implored. "One TV guy keeps saying I'm 37 years old, and a bunch of others say I'm 36. But I'm really only 35." "The Baseball Register lists your birthdate as Nov.

20, 1945," replied a visitor. "So, according to the book, you are 36." "Yeah," continued Johnstone, "but the book doesn't know that I spent a year in Australia." "Oh," said the other guy. "Oh." It's been three weeks since Jay Johnstone landed in Wrigley Field, and during that time the Cubs have remained part of the human race, which is an upset, and have avoided the pennant race, which is not his fault. Johnstone has been everything the Cubs wanted from a moonman, and more He has authored 5 home runs, amassed 15 RBIs and collected 19 hits in 60 at-bats for a .317 average. In his last 17 games including the first of Saturday's double-header setbacks to the St.

Louis Cardinals Johnstone is swatting a giddy .345. In the field, he has caught everything but what he was supposed to catch, flak. Off the field, he has been just what the psychiatrist ordered for a team with a lot of new players, a lot of quiet players and a lot of players who have 46 reasons to be tight against only 27 reasons to be up. "HE'S PERFECT FOR this group," says manager Lee Elia, surveying his imperfect lot. "Keeps everybody loose." After Jody Davis made his remarks about Ivan DeJesus the other day, the Cub catcher was tiptoeing bashfully toward the batting cage, which was surrounded by denizens of the press.

"Go on," said Johnstone, immediately breaking the tension. "Tell the writers that when you order chicken, you only order white meat." Recently, Johnstone was asked to be a guest host for Channel 7 sports. The fact that the game was still in progress never deterred him. He grabbed teammate Lee Smith and did his bit live from the left-field stands. "The show must go on," reasoned Johnstone.

After the Cubs were swept in a series at Philadelphia, Johnstone grabbed the clubhouse stereo and turned the volume knob until it wouldn't turn anymore. Through the noise, the other players heard his message. "Everybody was walking around like they'd Just lost their mother," said Johnstone. "Lot of great clubs have losing streaks. We should never forget we're in the big leagues and wearing a big league uniform.

We should be proud of both." EVERY TEAM NEEDS A Jay Johnstone, especially the Cubs. During a baseball season, even with 162 games corkscrewed into only six months, there are too many hours dull and void when the mind could addle without diversionary tactics. It never hurts when the guy lifting your spirits, or your eyelids, also can get you a base hit. By Bob Logan THE FIGURES in Chuck Shriver's little black book are just as revealing as the 18-minute gap in the Watergate tapes. They spell out the roller-coaster ride taken by Salome Barojas, anchorman of the White Sox bullpen.

Barojas was up, up and away, not yielding an earned run in his first nine appearances this season, a spectacular 14 innings of relief work. is how well the starters do. If they can consistently go into the seventh inning and beyond, the relievers will be fresh and strong in September, when we'll need them most. "We have enough out there to win our share of close games." In Shriver's detailed account, each player's performance is broken down, making it easier to spot where the Sox bullpen is breaking down. Understandably, Barojas' file is first in the relief pitching section.

It tells the tale on Barojas, along with the rest of the figures making up the relief pitcher's effectiveness chart. Not until May 7, when Barojas was roughed up for three hits and four runs in an 8-5 victory at Detroit, does anything out of the ordinary appear in the remarks column. The entry for that night says simply, "No location." THAT SUMMED UP the growing problems for Barojas better than any explanations offered by LaRussa or Ron Schueler, Sox pitching coach. Without overpowering stuff, the right-hander was hit hard anytime his pitches got above knee level. In eight of his last nine relief the same words appear: "Did not hold lead." Barojas' success with inherited runners has taken a similar nosedive.

He permitted only 2 of 17 to score in his first 12 outings, but since then 13 of 18 runners on base when the right-hander entered have crossed the plate. first "volunteers" to show up in the Sox bullpen. "We're scouting the minor leagues very heavily, and the majors, too," LaRussa said. "It's just a matter of finding the right guy and making a deal for him." LaRussa isn't alone in concluding that the Sox relief corps isn't strong enough to bail out the kind of close games contenders must win. Nowhere in the bullpen crew of right-handers Barojas, Ernesto Es-carrega and Eddie Solomon and lefthanders Kevin Hickey and Jerry Koosman is there a strikeout specialist like the Yankees' Goose Gos-sage or a ninth-inning stopper to rival Kansas City's Dan Quisenber-ry.

RATHER THAN prying somebody loose from a National League roster, where waivers would first have to be obtained from the other clubs, the Sox are beating the bushes south of the border. The Mexican Connection that provided them with Barojas and Escarrega bolstered the bullpen, but neither right-hander is a flamethrower. "I think the five relief pitchers we've been using most can match any bullpen in our division," LaRussa said. "We have depth, but people keep asking me how good the White Sox bullpen really is. I give them a politician's answer: It depends." On what, Tony? "ON THE STARTING pitchers," he replied.

"The key to the bullpen Since then, the Mexican righthander has come back to earth with a thud. In 35 innings capped by Wednesday's Comiskey Park debacle against Minnesota, he has been raked for 19 runs, a mediocre 4.88 ERA. That mushrooming total spells trouble, and the handwriting in Sox publicist Shriver's book also could be on the wall for the Sox's title hopes in the American League West. In short, a bullpen that was considered more than adequate last month suddenly became less than effective. EVEN THOUGH the trade deadline has passed, the Sox are looking for relief help.

If they can't get it from a waiver deal or some other source, don't be surprised if a couple of starting pitchers begin wearing two. hats when the pennant race heats up. Left-hander Steve Trout, now in manager Tony LaRussa's doghouse, and righthander Richard Dotson, plagued by the home run ball, could become the while Cubs seek a rhythm x-- H. JJ 1 hill If hi :7 'v it" i ri a "It's not necessary, but it helps, if a guy like Jay does his job as well as he does it," marvels batting coach Billy Williams. "Durocher would have loved him." The Los Angeles Dodgers, of course, did not, which is why they released Johnstone.

He listened to several entreaties, Including one from the ABC network concerning the commentating post that Steve Stone got. Unlike Stone, Johnstone didn't feel like the retiring sort. "The Dodgers did what they wanted to do, and I'm not bitter," he says. "I loved them, but the idea is not to get angry, get even. Out of every situation that looks bad, you gotta find some good.

I knew I could still hit. Knew I could still do more than just hit." The Cubs hired him primarily for his specialty, pinch-hitting, but left open the possibility that he might do more. Has he ever. In one game playing right field, Johnstone ran into the wall three times. Moreover, all three times, he was going after the ball.

"IT MAKES A BIG difference to know going to the park that you'll get four at-bats instead of one, maybe," he says. "It's a lot more comfortable. Most of my at-bats with the Dodgers were against a starting pitcher who was going good, or a great relief pitcher. Sutter, Allen, McGraw, guys." Pinch-hitting is challenging enough. Babe Ruth batted .194 doing it; Ty Cobb .217.

But, Johnstone reasons, it erodes other skills, such as a perspective of the total game, and agility on the bases. How it failed to diminish Johnstone's eye is testimony that he is less a flake than a craftsman, after all. "I spent hours and hours batting baseballs off a tee," he says. "Every day at Dodger Stadium after they released me, and before the Cubs picked me up. It doesn't give you the action on the ball that a pitcher will, but still, the pitcher has to put the ball in the strike zone.

"That's where it always is with the batting tee. Like Ted Williams says, hitting is swinging in grooves. You see, you think, you react. If you practice enough with the tee, It becomes so instinctive, swinging in those grooves, those zones, you eliminate one step. You don't have to think.

You see, you react. That means a lot." JOHNSTONE ADMITS HE can cut the inexperience with a knife In the Cub locker room, but, he says, not to worry. There is awill at Wrigley Field in search of a way. "I could tell a winning clubhouse from a losing clubhouse in a minute," he says. "There's an air about each.

But just because the Cubs haven't won doesn't mean they don't want to, or won't. No substitute for being around. I know. I'm 35." But the book says "Like I said, Australia," he explains. "I went there at age so my mother could have my brother.

Went to school, and it was so advanced there that when I came back to America, I skipped first grade. Roland Hemond, who was then with the Angels, signed me right out of high school. "I was 16, but they just figured I was 17, and I wasn't gonna say anything. Didn't think it mattered then. Stilt don't.

I'm gonna play till I'm 40, anyway. So, that's the Australia See ya." By Jerome Holtzman EVEN THE BEST of major league bullpens is similar to the international gold market. Up one week, down the next. "Right now we're in a downswing," concedes Bill Connors, the Cubs' pitching coach. "We were very good early, the first month or so.

But lately we've been struggling." The frustration of this struggle was evident last Wednesday night in Pittsburgh. Reliever Bill Campbell had picked up his first National League victory, a triumph that snapped a five-game Cub losing streak. Ordinarily, it would have been a joyous occasion, especially for Campbell. But the veteran reliever was not satisfied. i "I JUST HAVEN'T been throwing right," he explained.

He then revealed he didn't have a precise fix on what he was doing wrong. "I'm just going to have to go back to the drawing board and start all over again." "Nobody can do the job every day," says manager Lee Elia. "Smitty can be a bullpen Connors says. "If you need a strikeout, he's the guy who's going to get it for you. Some people say he's not consistent with his fast ball, that he tires easily and loses his stuff.

They're wrong. We" worked him four days in a row. The next day, we had the radar gun and he had a 95-mile-an-hour fast ball." Smith's chair in the bullpen has been taken by Randy Martz, previously a starter. The other man In the Cub bullpen is Mike Proly, a determined right-hander who has been consistently effective. Unlike the others, Proly has the ability to work both long and short.

His first win, for example, was achieved with a 4 finishing appearance. FOR A RELIEVER to be sharp, according to Campbell, he should make three to four appearances a week. "If you sit for four, five days you'll lose your rhythm," he explains. Hernandez, who leads the Cub relievers with five saves and three wins, all in relief, insists he can work every day, if necessary providing he doesn't stay much more than an inning. The only left-hander on the staff, Sutter.

They lose, too." The Cubs, of course, no longer have Sutter, the National League's premier reliever. Nor do they have Gossage, the Yankee right-hander with the 97-mile-an-hour fast ball. But Connors and Elia both are convinced the Cubs do have a more than adequate bullpen staff. "The potential is there," Connors Insists. "WILLIE HERNANDEZ is one of the best left-handed relievers in the league.

He went for a month without giving up a run. His fast ball is live enough; he can throw it by the best hitters. And he's aggressive. That's a big necessity for a reliever." Campbell was next. "He's one of the most professional men I've been around.

I admire the way he goes about it. He gives you 150 percent. You never get an excuse from him. Sure, he's been hit, but give him the ball and he'll get people out." i Connors moved on to Dick Tidrow. "The last two weeks he's been' throwing better than he has all year.

A lot of hitters don't like to nit off Tidrow. Jay Johnstone was one. When he came over here, the first thing he said was, 'I'm glad we're finally on the same side. I've always hated to hit off CONNORS' PERCEPTION of Lee Smith was to become moot because Smith, who was among the league leaders in appearances, is no longer working out of the "Even Rich Gossage and Bruce Hernandez tops the club in ap I Willie Hernandez, the i tv pearances wun sa ana pitched in both games Saturday, but says he is not tired, nor is he likely to be. In fact, when the bullpen action diminishes, he would prefer an occasional start "so I can pitch long." TV' Cub9 Clever, 5.

'-iTNw. believes he loses effec- I tiveness without con-I I 1 -t stant work. tuK. J' y' I.