COMMENTARY : Remember Smith? His Rust Comes Off in a Save Situation

SEATTLE — The young fan held out a copy of a national baseball magazine early Wednesday afternoon and asked Lee Smith to sign on the cover, right across the full color photo of Lee Smith and the screaming accompanying headline: “Fallen Angels.”

Isn’t that always the first rule of autograph houndsmanship--add insult to inconvenience whenever possible?

Smith was incredulous.

“I thought you had to get in a game,” he grumbled, “to screw it up.”

Unlike most of his brethren in the House of the Sagging Halo, Smith hadn’t fallen. Not lately, anyway. He’d done a lot of sitting, though, going two weeks--from Sept. 12 on--without seeing a save opportunity.

That pretty much says it all about the Angels and their lost grip in the American League West. When a team spends two full weeks down the stretch and doesn’t give its bullpen closer even one ninth-inning lead to save--or squander, for that matter--that team is either pitching an inordinate number of complete games or completely blowing an inordinately large lead in the standings to the Seattle Mariners.

Wednesday night, finally, Smith had a chance to stretch his long, ambling legs in the ninth inning of a game that mattered. Twice since Sept. 12, he had made guest appearances as a late-inning janitor, cleaning up after messes made by the Angels because, well, someone had to.

Wednesday was something strangely different, however.

A 2-0 Angel lead, with Joey Cora, Tino Martinez and Alex Diaz due up for the Mariners.

A game the Angels stood to win, had to win, or else the fall would at last reach pavement, and it would take many more hands than Smith’s to scrub away the stain.

Cora, pinch-hitting for Mike Blowers, had helped bring the Kingdome roof down on the Angels on Tuesday by spanking a Shawn Boskie fastball with the “8” on the back of his jersey, earning a free pass to first base and prying the third inning open long enough for Seattle to score three runs.

This time, Cora struck out.

Martinez, the Seattle first baseman who had doubled home three runs in Tuesday’s 10-2 Angel defeat, hung in against Smith for all of two pitches. The first he fouled back over the screen. The second he golfed to center field, a harmless flare Jim Edmonds easily gathered.

Diaz, Lou Piniella’s fourth pinch-hitter of the evening, stood between Smith and a reason for the Angels to show up for their final home stand. Right fielder Tim Salmon jogged in to catch the sinking liner and, for at least 24 hours, the Angels had put a halt to their sinking in the AL West.

Smith’s 35th save came 15 days after his 34th, but then, who’s counting, other than Smith, Marcel Lachemann, Bill Bavasi, Gene Autry, Jackie Autry, every employee of the Angel organization and a couple million fans residing in and around Orange County?

“It’s been a while,” Smith said, laughing and cradling the once-endangered celebratory post-save beer. “The last one I think I [messed] it up. I think the kid from Minnesota hit a home run. I [messed] it up, and I guess they were never going to let me back in there.”

Actually, no, the kid from Minnesota--Dan Masteller is his name--hit a ninth-inning home run off Smith to ruin a save, and an Angel victory, on Aug. 9. Three days later, Smith had another chance and converted, against the Chicago White Sox. But the memory lapse is understandable. The mind can play tricks when you’re sitting and waiting for weeks on end, with no end to another Angel losing streak in sight.

“I went through a stretch like this earlier in the year,” Smith said, “but that was when we were scoring 12 runs a game. Ain’t many saves when the guys are scoring 11, 12 runs. Just as I’d be warming up--BAM!--somebody’d hit a home run to put us up by six.

“But that’s fine. There’s no worrying when you do it that way.”

You worry when you’re not doing it any way.

“Good to be back,” Smith announced. “I made some decent pitches. Junior didn’t hit one through the roof off me. I kept it in the park.

“Now, I hope to get a chance to pitch four more days in a row. That’d be nice.”