Allentown Morning Call - August 27, 1980
4 runs, 13 hits not enough for Phils
By Ted Meixell, Call Sports Writer
PHILADELPHIA – It is said that four runs should be enough to win a major league baseball game. Then, too, it is thought that a team that strikes 13 base hits in a nine-inning contest should score more than four runs.
But, partly due to a shortage of clutch hits and partly due to some shaky baserunning. those are the exact figures the Phillies compiled last night in Game Two of a three-game set against the Dodgers. And, since Los Angeles fashioned eight runs from its 10 hits, Philadelphia's finest did not win the game.
The Dodgers broke through for four big runs against loser Bob Walk, 9-3, and reliever Randy Lerch in the third inning for a 5-1 lead they never lost.
The Phils had several other chances to score, but rookie Lonnie Smith and Mike Schmidt ran them out of two potential innings.
In the third. Smith led off with a single and took off with Pete Rose batting. But he ran with his head down and, when Rose lined to left, he failed to get turned around in time and Dusty Baker doubled him off first. Scratch one rally.
Then, with the score 7-4 in the fifth, Schmidt doubled to left. But he first failed to tag up on Greg Luzinski's long fly to right and then hesitated too long on Keith Moreland's two-out single and had to be held at third where he died. End of second rally.
The Phils broke on top with a single run in their half of the first. Rose led off with his 3,516th career hit, a single right up the middle. (The hit was a ( milestone, moving Pistol Pete past ' Tris Speaker and into fourth place on the all-time hit list.)
Bake McBride. back from a two-day sabbatical as Smith moved to center to give Garry Maddox a night off in manager Dallas Green's new revolving-door outfield setup, singled Rose to third and took second as Rick Monday tried to gun him down.
Schmidt was walked semi-intentionally and Rose scampered home when Luzinski bounced into a forceout.
L. A. tied it at 1-1 In the second on a single by Ron Cey, a walk to Monday, and a single by "The Monday Night Villain," Bill Russell. Rose and Walk prevented further damage with two straight fine defensive plays.
First Rose ranged far to his backhand side to short circuit Mike Scioscia's sharp grounder in the hole and forced Russell at second. Then, Dodger starter Rick Sutcliffe tried a suicide squeeze, but lined it straight at the charging Walk, who easily doubled Monday off third.
Walk walked right into a passel of trouble and out of the ballgame in the decisive third. He broke ground for his grave by walking leadoff batter Davey Lopes. With Lopes running on a 3-2 count, former Phlllie Phavorlte Jay Johnstone roped a triple to the gap in right-center. It was the eventual game-winning hit.
Baker singled in Johnstone, went to second on Steve Garvey's groundout and to third on a wild pitch. When Walk walked Cey, Green summoned Lerch from his bullpen purgatory.
Lerch, however, did not immediately establish himself as a Fireman-of-the-Year candidate, serving up RBI-singles to Monday and catcher Sciosia, who was just called up Monday from Albuquerque, before fanning Sutcliffe to end the uprising.
It became a laugher in the fourth when Lerch walked Johnstone and served Baker a delicious 3-1 fastball – one he lunched on and deposited against the San Diego Padre logo beyond the fence in left-center. The homer was Baker's 25th and made it 7-1.
The Phils weren't laughing, though, and they fought back to score three runs in their half of the fourth and send Sutcliffe, who was penciled into the rotation last night when Don Sutton broke a toe on his right foot , to the showers.
Schmidt doubled to deep center, went to third on Moreland's single and scored on Manny Trillo's groundout. (Trillo entered the game leading the league In hitting with a .327 mark.)
Larry Bowa got an Infield single and pinch hitter George Vukovich lashed a single to right to score Moreland and bring in Dodger reliever Joe Beckwith., Beckwith began inauspiciously, as Smith bounced a single to left to score Bowa, but he cut things short by getting Rose to bounce to second.
Beckwith and Bob Castillo combined to keep the Phils off the board thereafter, although Green's crew did bang out five more hits. Castillo, who came on after Beckwith injured his hand sliding into second, got the win. He's now 4-6.
Tom Lasorda's favorite third baseman, Cey, set the final score with a solo homer just inside the foul pole in left off Ron Reed in the seventh.
Steve Carlton goes for his 20th win tonight against the Dodgers' Bob Welch. The Phils then leave for an 11-game road trip their final swing to the West Coast in 1980.
There’s no limelight for the Kinneys
By Keith Groller, Call Sports Writer
You'll never see Sharon Kinney on the cover of a national sports magazine with her husband. As the wife of San Diego relief pitcher Dennis Kinney, the former Sharon Rohrbach of Whitehall just isn't cover story material.
You see, the life of Sharon and Dennis Kinney is hardly similar to that of a baseball superstar like Steve Garvey and his wife Cyndy. There are no trophy cases containing All-Star Game and World Series awards and no limelight. While the Garveys are alleged to be having "trouble in paradise," the Kinneys are just trying to survive.
Kinney was the losing pitcher in the 17-inning game at Veterans Stadium last Thursday. The Phillies won it, 9-8. But Kinney was impressive in his 9⅓ innings of work. It was the first time the lefthander from Temperance, Mich., ever had gone more than 4⅔ innings in a major league game, and for a struggling pitcher on a struggling team, it was a day to remember. Yesterday he pitched only one-third of inning in an 18-inning game against the New York Mets and got the save.
"It was a very good outing for him," said Mrs. Kinney, who met her husband while she was attending Arizona University and he was in spring training for the Cleveland Indians in 1977. "It's been such an up-and-down year for him."
It's been an up-and-down career for Kinney, who spent eight years in such places at Toledo. Jersey City and San Antonio before cracking the Indians roster in 1977. Kinney pitched in 18 games for Cleveland before the Indians traded him to San Diego for another well-traveled pitcher, Dan Spillner, at the June trading deadline.
Kinney didn't even report to the Padres. He was sent to the Triple A farm club in Hawaii. Granted, it's a much nicer place than Toledo, but not the big leagues.
Kinney eventually worked for San Diego and amassed an earned run average of 6.43 in seven games. He again split the 1979 season in Hawaii and San Diego before securing a position on the Padre staff this spring.
Meanwhile, Sharon has moved right along with her husband, and with two years of dating and a year of marriage behind her has no complaints about being a baseball wife.
"I like to travel, which is a necessity in this business. It's tough at times with the road trips but I'm adjusting," said Mrs. Kinney, who played Softball in high school but was not a baseball fan until meeting her husband-to-be. "The wives are allowed one free trip with the team. The rest of the road trips must come from our own expenses, but I don't go on many trips with Dennis. He has enough to worry about on the road without me tagging along."
The future is uncertain for the Kinneys and the Padres. When the season started. Kinney had a lifetime 0-3 record and a 4.70 earned run average. As a Padre relief pitcher most of the year, Kinney has racked up four wins and is showing signs of consistency.
However, San Diego recently fired its general manager and is in the midst of a rebuilding program. At 28, Kinney might not seem to fit into a rebuilding program, but after mwhat her husband already has been through, Mrs. Kinney is not afraid of the future.