Yankee Pitchers Earn Their Pinstripes in the Opener, 2-1

It was enough to make New Yorkers start thinking about October already.

It’s well known that the Yankees have plenty of hitting. Monday, Dennis Rasmussen and Dave Righetti gave New York plenty of pitching, too.

With Rickey Henderson supplying the hitting, Rasmussen and Righetti combined for a five-hitter at Detroit as the Yankees beat the Tigers 2-1 in 10 innings in the season opener for both teams.

“Everybody talks about our hitting, but the places where we improved over the winter were pitching and defense,” said Righetti, who last year had a major-league record 46 saves. “When you’re facing a good pitcher like Jack Morris who’s pitching a good game, it’s important to do that.”

Indeed, Morris, a 21-game winner last year who spurned the Yankees financial overtures during the winter, was superb--pitching 9 innings before Willie Hernandez came on to record the final out.

But Rasmussen was equally as effective, holding the Tigers to four hits over the first seven innings. His only mistake was a long home run by Larry Herndon leading off the Detroit sixth.

“Rasmussen knew he was going to pitch for a few days, so he was ready,” Righetti said. “Then, they got him out when his confidence was high. That’s going to pay dividends in the future, I think.”

It was the first opening day victory on the road for the Yankees since they beat the old Washington Senators in 1969. In the interim, the Yankees had lost 10 openers on the road, and were 3-15 overall.

“Winning an opener is so important to this ballclub,” Righetti said. “That’s what winning ballclubs do if they want to win the championship. This was a very good ballgame.”

Henderson’s two-out double in the 10th inning scored Claudell Washington with the winning run.

After Morris retired the first two New York batters in the 10th. Washington hit a pinch-single to right and took third on Wayne Tolleson’s single to right. Henderson followed with a double up the gap in right-center.

“I wanted to be patient,” Henderson said. “I had come up with runners on first and third in the fifth inning and Morris struck me out. I was too anxious.”

Morris, who departed after walking Willie Randolph, allowed nine hits, walking two and struck out four.

“I’m happy with how I pitched today,” said Morris, who took the Tigers to arbitration and won a contract worth $1.85 million for this season. “I pitched pretty good out there. I’m just not happy losing.”

Morris, who had thrown only 105 pitches through the first nine innings, said he still had good stuff in the 10th.

“My location was good,” he said. “My velocity may have fallen off just a little, but I don’t think that was a factor since I was throwing Henderson curves and sliders.”

Righetti, who took over at the start of the eighth, got the victory. Righetti allowed one hit over the last three innings, striking out three and walking three.

After two were out in the Yankees fourth, Gary Ward got the first hit off Morris, a line single to center. Ward scored from first when Detroit third baseman Darnell Coles picked up a slow-rolling single by Dave Winfield and threw it into the New York bullpen for an error.

Coles, who made a team-high 13 of the Tigers’ 45 errors in spring training, blamed himself for the defeat.

“We should have won 1-0, obviously,” Coles moaned. “My error didn’t help, but we didn’t hit in key situations, either.”

Herndon tied it 1-1 in the Detroit sixth with a home run off the facing of the second deck in straightaway center field, above the 440-foot sign, on a 2-and-1 pitch from Rasmussen.

Milwaukee 5, Boston 1--The Brewers hope to base a resurgence on young players, but it was the veterans who played with youthful exuberance in an opening day victory over the Red Sox at Milwaukee.

Paul Molitor, Robin Yount and Jim Gantner, the only three players on the opening-day roster left from the 1982 American League championship team, combined for seven hits and four RBIs to back the pitching of Teddy Higuera, who blanked the defending AL champions for the first seven innings.

“If you can score a couple of runs early it’s a good sign with Higuera on the mound,” said Yount, a 14-year veteran who drove in two runs with a single and double and scored a third.

“Anytime you play in front of 51,000 people and you haven’t been here in a while, it’s a whole different atmosphere. It gets your adrenalin going.

“We played well for the first game. We hope it’s like 1982 but we’ve got a long way to go.”

Higuera, a 20-game winner in 1986, yielded only six hits over the first seven innings before he was lifted. He was backed by 12 hits and several key defensive plays, including one that in the fourth inning prevented a Red Sox run.

Molitor had a triple and double and Gantner three hits.

Mark Clear pitched a hitless eighth and Dan Plesac worked the ninth, allowing a run on a single by Don Baylor and second baseman Juan Castillo’s error.

“I could have gone nine,” Higuera said through an interpreter. “But this is the first time I’ve gone seven innings this year. I was not expecting to be taken out. It was a surprise, but it’s the manager’s decision.”

Molitor led off the bottom of the first with a triple to right center off Red Sox starter Bob Stanley and scored on Yount’s single to center.

Stanley, primarily a reliever in his career, started in place of Roger Clemens, who ended a 29-day holdout during the weekend, and Dennis Boyd and Bruce Hurst, who are both nursing injuries.

Gantner started the fifth with a single, took second on a groundout and scored on Yount’s double to left. Glenn Braggs singled home Yount for a 3-0 lead and Greg Brock followed with a single that finished Stanley.

In the sixth, Gantner singled home Bill Schroeder, who had doubled off Red Sox reliever Steve Crawford. Molitor’s two-out double made it 5-0.

“Molitor and Yount were the two guys I was worried about,” said Stanley, who made his first start since 1981. He went 4 innings.

“I just made one bad pitch to Yount. He’s a great hitter and when you make a mistake against a great hitter, you’re going to get hurt,” Stanley said of the fifth-inning double.

The Red Sox averted a shutout in the ninth with a run off Plesac on Don Baylor’s single, a walk and throwing error by Castillo on a potential double-play grounder.

The Brewers cut down another run in the fourth when Bill Buckner, who had singled, was thrown out at the plate on Jim Rice’s double to right.

“This brought tears to a fundamentalist’s eyes -- the way we played today,” said rookie Milwaukee Manager Tom Trebelhorn.

“It’s just a special thing on opening day. If we play the game as well as we can, we’re not going to lose as many game as people think we are.”

Baltimore 2, Texas 1--The Orioles made new manager Cal Ripken Sr.’s debut a successful one, defeating the Rangers, but the first-year skipper refused to get excited about the Opening Day victory at Baltimore.

“It’s just the first game of the season, and we still have 161 to go,” Ripken said moments after pinch-hitter Larry Sheets’ sacrifice fly on a 3-2 pitch in the bottom of the ninth accounted for the winning run.

“I don’t excited about first games of the season - but winning is better than losing,” said Ripken, who has been in the Orioles organization for 31 years, the last 11 as coach.

Ray Knight opened with a single to right off reliever Greg Harris. Harris threw wildly trying to pick off pinch-runner Rene Gonzales, sending Gonzales to third.

Harris intentionally walked Terry Kennedy and pinch-hitter Jim Dwyer to load the bases for Sheets. On a 3-2 pitch, Sheets lined a shot to center fielder Oddibe McDowell, whose throw was far too late to catch Gonzales. Don Aase, who pitched 1 innings of hitless ball, was credited with the victory.

“You want to be in that situation,” said Sheets. “That’s what we live for, that’s what I live for. You couldn’t have dreamed up a better ending.”

“The ball slipped out of my hands because I didn’t get that good of a grip on it,” Harris said of the errant pickoff throw. “Normally, I’m always trying to pick a baserunner off but this time I was just trying to keep him honest.”

The near-sellout crowd of 51,650 was the seventh-largest regular season attendance in the Orioles’ 34-year history.

The Rangers grabbed a 1-0 lead just three pitches into game when McDowell lined a 1-1 pitch off starter Mike Boddicker over the right-center field fence, 410 feet from home plate.

Baltimore tied the score 1-1 in bottom of the second when Rangers’ catcher Don Slaught was unable to catch a knuckleball by starter Charlie Hough. The passed ball allowed Fred Lynn to race home from third with the tying run.

Texas threatened to break the tie in the eighth. Larry Parrish opened with a single to center. One out later, Buechele ripped a double off the left field wall, but pinch-runner Bob Brower was cut down at the plate on a relay throw by first baseman Eddie Murray to catcher Terry Kennedy.

Chicago 5, Kansas City 4--The Chicago White Sox opened 1987 the same way they spent much of 1986 -- playing in a one-run game.

Harold Baines drove in two runs and Richard Dotson was credited with the win in his first start on Opening Day to lead the White Sox a 5-4 victory at Kansas City.

The White Sox were involved in 52 one-run games last year and Chicago Manager Jim Fregosi expects another season of close contests this year.

“We’re just not used to playing unless it’s a one-run game,” he said. “And we’re going to play in a lot of one-run games since I don’t see us bomb-squading anyone.”

Fregosi was referring to Chicago’s apparent lack of hitting. The White Sox did not start a batter who hit .300 last year and six of their nine batters hit less than .250.

The White Sox got just eight hits Monday, but worked the hits into five runs to make a loser of Kansas City left-hander Danny Jackson. The White Sox scored four runs -- two unearned -- in the second inning on three hits to wipe out a 1-0 Kansas City lead.

The biggest damage to the Royals came on an error by shortstop Buddy Biancalana that let in two runs.

Jackson got three ground-ball outs in the first inning but walked Carlton Fisk to open the second. Greg Walker followed with a single and, after an out, Tim Hulett singled to tie the game. Ozzie Guillen’s single loaded the bases for Ron Karkovice.

Karkovice hit a soft line drive at Biancalana, but the ball went off the shortstop’s glove and into left field. Two runs scored on the error and Chicago led 3-1. The White Sox got one more run on an infield single by Baines.

Dotson was giving up more hits -- he allowed eight over 6 innings -- but the Royals were not able to bunch them like the White Sox.

“I saw him pitch better in spring training than today,” Fregosi said. “But he had good velocity and arm speed. He just didn’t have the changeup.”

“It was nice to win the first one,” Dotson said. “The first time out when it counts is always exciting -- whether it’s today or Wednesday (the second game).

“And getting those four runs helps. I felt like I could be a little less perfect.”

About the only mistakes Dotson made were George Brett’s home run in the fourth inning and two singles in the seventh.

After the second seventh-inning hit, the White Sox went to Bobby Thigpen, who was greeted by Kevin Seitzer two-hit double to cut the lead to 5-4. Thigpen got the next five batters before yielding a leadoff single in the ninth to Ed Hearn.

Thigpen got the next two outs but walked Seitzer and Fregosi made another change, this time going to Bob James. James earned the save by throwing just one pitch, getting Danny Tartabull to fly out to end the game.

Seitzer wound up 3-for-4 in the game, opening the day with a triple off the glove of Gary Redus. He scored the first Kansas City run of the year when Tartabull followed with a single.

Chicago’s four-run uprising in the second was backed by a run-scoring double by Baines in the seventh that chased Jackson.

“Danny pitched a great game, especially for a kid on Opening Day,” said new Royals Manager Billy Gardner. “They just had that one innning when he got a little wild. If he keeps up like that, he’ll win a lot of games.”

Toronto 7, Cleveland 3--With the season only one day old, Toronto left-hander Jimmy Key has already moved five weeks ahead of last season’s victory pace.

Key held the Cleveland Indians to just two runs on three hits in six innings, leading the Blue Jays to a 7-3 victory at Toronto.

A happy, but rain-soaked, crowd of 40,404 saw Lloyd Moseby get a solo homer for the first hit of the 1987 major league baseball season and add a bases-loaded single. Tom Candiotti took the loss.

“I’ll tell you one thing, 1-0 is a lot better than 0-3 with a 13.27 ERA which I was last year after my first six starts,” said Key. “I really wanted to get that first win out of the way. Last year it took me until May 11.”

“I was satisfied with the win but not overly enthused with the way I threw,” Key said.

Candiotti was even less pleased with his performance.

“I couldn’t get my best pitch over and I couldn’t come in with my curve because it was no good,” said the knuckleballer, who lasted only five innings, yielding six runs on eight hits. “I stuck with my knuckleball but it was the worst knuckleball I’ve had in a long time.”

The Blue Jays scored on each of their first three hits. In the first inning, Moseby drilled a two-out knuckleball over the 375-foot mark in right-center to give Toronto a 1-0 lead.

“If it takes a good start by me to get this club off to a fast start then that’s what I’ll have to do,” said Moseby, who was not overly interested in discussing either of his two hits. “April is going to be a real critical month for us.”

The Blue Jays stretched their margin to 3-0 in the second. Willie Upshaw opened with a homer over the right field fence and, one out later, Fred McGriff walked. With two out, McGriff stole second and advanced on catcher Chris Bando’s throwing error. McGriff scored when Tony Fernandez ripped a triple to the left field fence.

Cleveland pulled within 3-2 in the fourth. Andre Thornton doubled and Pat Tabler hit a 3-1 pitch from Key into the left field bleachers.

Toronto took a 4-2 lead in the fifth when Jesse Barfield doubled past the outstretched glove of diving center fielder Brett Butler, scoring George Bell from first.

Toronto made it 7-2 in the sixth. Ernie Whitt doubled and McGriff walked. Doug Jones relieved and, with the infield expecting a bunt, rookie Mike Sharperson doubled to the left field fence for his first major-league RBI. After Fernandez walked to load the bases, Moseby pulled a two-run single to right.

Cleveland made it 7-3 in the seventh on Cory Snyder’s homer off Mark Eichhorn.