Wilmington Morning News - July 23, 1980

Green yells as Phils lose 5^th straight

By Ray Finocchiaro, Staff Correspondent

CINCINNATI – If any of the Phillies didn't realize they'd dropped their fifth straight game last night, Manager Dallas Green made it certain at high-decibel levels.

Green closed the doors and read the team the riot act – again – after the Phils' 3-2 loss to the Reds at Riverfront Stadium.

"All I can do is scream and yell and kick and holler," said Green after cooling off somewhat.

Asked if he did "all of the above " last night, Green half-smiled and said, "I didn't do much kicking."

But the screaming, yelling and hollering was audible through two sets of closed doors.

Green was particularly annoyed by the fact that the Phils seemingly went through the motions with Steve Carlton on the mound... en route to losing his fifth game after 15 victories.

"If you can't gear up for a guy going for the Cy Young award, who can you gear up for?" Green wondered. "He could've won this one. He could've won this one 4-0 easily."

But Mike Schmidt's throwing error opened the door for the Reds' final two runs in the sixth and the Phils couldn't recover against Mario Soto.

"We give them two runs but we don't score two," said Green. "Lefty pitched fine. He held 'em to one run, the team held 'em to three."

Schmidt was the offensive and defensive goat last night. Besides his throwing error, which Green described as "Johnny Bench outhustled him, that's all," Schmidt was 0-for-4 and stranded five baserunners, three on third base.

"And two of those guys on third base were with less than two out," Green pointed out.

The problem, the manager reiterated, is character.

"You still go back to character – that's what makes a ball club," Green said. "If character can't evolve and develop, we're in helluva shape because last year's character wasn't very nice on this ball club. But we've told 'em that. We've gone through that over a thousand times."

But Green made it 1,001 last night.

The Phils actually had Soto in hot water early, putting two men on base in the first inning.

Greg Gross walked and Bake McBride singled and both moved up a base on Bench's passed ball. But Soto flashed his strikeout-an-inning form, fanning both Schmidt and Garry Maddox to give him 95 K's in 94 innings.

Soto wasn't as fortunate in the second, however, as Bob Boone drilled his sixth homer over the left field fence.

"That was a hanging slider, right in his face," said Soto. "That was the only bad pitch I made all night."

Carlton really wasn't dazzling anybody, either, running into trouble in the first two innings with the Reds tying the score in the second.

Bench, who's on the same wavelength as Carlton and seemingly hits Lefty at will, singled to left and raced to third when Ray Knight doubled down the left field line.

Dan Driessen, who drove home the winning run in Monday night's soggy opener, scored Bench with a sacrifice fly to center. Carlton got the next two men to preserve the tie.

Already baseball's left-handed strikeout king, Carlton temporarily moved into sixth place on the all-time list with 2,856 – bypassing the still-active Ferguson Jenkins and Jim Bunning – when he struck Knight out in the fourth.

But Knight got back at Carlton – and picked up his second hit of the game – when he tripled Bench home in the sixth and scored on Driessen's single.

Bench had reached base on Schmidt's throwing error that pulled Pete Rose off first base.

Schmidt has just two hits in his last 22 at-bats, but Green rejected the notion that the third baseman might be carrying his problems at the plate into the field with him.

"He usually doesn't do that," Green said. "He's played this game long enough to have been through this before. He's battled through it before and he'll battle through it again."

The Phils scored their final run in the seventh with another of their two-out rallies.

Rose walked and went to third on Gross' single to center. McBride singled to right, scoring Rose. Schmidt, who'd already stranded three baserunners, upped his count to five with a long fly to right.

Green says he doesn't plan to give up his oratory.

"If I keep yelling and screaming, somebody will listen sooner or later, if they want to or not," Green said. "If I didn't think they wanted to listen, I wouldn't be here."

Do they really want to listen?

"Nobody said it would be easy," Dallas Green sighed. Then he paused for a moment. "I can hear Danny (Ozark) chuckling now."

EXTRA INNINGS - Bench's second-inning single tied him with Edd Roush for fourth place on Reds' all-time hit list with 1,784... Reds and New York Mets are only clubs with winning records against Carlton... McBride's 12-game hitting streak is a club high. Bake did it once before and Garry Maddox tied it... Phils went over the million mark in road attendance last night with paid crowd of 28,079... Nino Espinosa will face the Reds' Bruce Berenyi (1-0) tonight at 8:05 before Phils head home... Atlanta opens the homestand Friday with a 5:35 p.m. twinighter.

Bull back by weekend – maybe

By Ray Finocchiaro, Staff Correspondent

CINCINNATI – Greg Luzinski is eligible to come off the disabled list today, but don't expect the Phillies' left fielder to rush back into action before the weekend – if then.

Luzinski has been sidelined with a right knee that had 100 cc of fluid drained from it in the midst of the amphetamine controversy two weeks ago. Luzinski's problems were pushed to the background while pills were uppermost in everybody's mind.

But Luzinski has been working out at home while the Phillies have been on the road and the critical phase of the Bull's return will begin today.

"Greg's free of pain and he has the whole range of motion," said Phillies' trainer Don Seger here yesterday after talking to team physical) Dr. Phillip Marone, who examined Luzinski in the afternoon.

"He's been hitting off the tee (under Billy DeMars' tutelage since Monday) and he'll start running Wednesday. Then we'll see how it reacts. If there's no negative reaction, when we get back on Thursday, I'll start him on cuts, starts and stops. We'll shake him down and see if he rebels."

Seger admitted that Liizinski was a bit worried on Tuesday about bis rehabilitation.

"He was apprehensive about it," Seger said. "He'd had a knee injury before and he knows what can happen. But his knee structure is fine and the ligaments are fine. He has some arthritic ligaments in the knee, but a lot of athletes have them and it's common in people who've had knee surgery."

Seger said that Marone assured Luzinski that he would not permanently damage his knee, thus reducing Luzinski's apprehension.

But Seger wouldn't predict the Bull's quick return.

"I doubt if he'll be ready, baseball-wise, by Friday," the trainer said. "Getting ready for competition again – the hitting, running and extra work, things like that – that's up to the coaches as to how far he is."