Making It Difficult to Pull a Fast One : Angels: Having a Texan calling the balls and strikes made a great pitcher even tougher to hit, some players say.

ARLINGTON, TEX. —  With the Angels down seven runs Sunday to the seemingly unhittable combination of Nolan Ryan and--at least in the Angels’ view--plate umpire Durwood Merrill, Dave Winfield went up to lead off the eighth inning with a simple thought in mind.

If the ball was going in the vicinity of the strike zone, he was going to swing at it.

“Nolan is throwing hard. It’s twilight. And . . . well, I’m just trying to figure out how to say it. . . . You know, the plate just kept getting bigger and bigger,” Winfield said. “Durwood being from Texas . . . Well, I saw the gleam in his eye. I was just swinging.”

And so it was that Winfield connected on an 0-and-2 fastball and laced a ground single up the middle, ending Ryan’s bid for an eighth no-hitter.

“It wasn’t right down the middle,” Winfield said of the pitch. “I had to battle. I wasn’t taking too many pitches.

“(Ryan) gave me one of those knee-bending curveballs to lead off the inning. Then the fastball (Winfield hit) . . . I just wanted to get the bat on it. When I saw it go, I thought, ‘Don’t hit the (second base) bag, don’t go to an infielder,’ because I knew we wouldn’t get too many chances.”

The 44-year-old Ryan retired the first 18 he faced before walking Luis Polonia to lead off the seventh. Then, after getting out of that inning on a strikeout and a double play, he gave up the single to Winfield, who previously had one hit in 22 at-bats against Ryan.

Ryan, who has battled a shoulder injury throughout this season, came out of the game after reaching a prearranged pitch limit of 110 through 8 1/3 innings. He struck out 14, including seven in a row in one stretch, and gave up two hits.

“That was one of the better games you’ll see pitched,” Winfield said, “one of the better games I’ve participated in. I mean, it was not good for our team. But he had it going. He really did.”

Others in the Angel clubhouse shared those feelings, giving Ryan his due. Still, as did Winfield, they wondered aloud about the strike zone of Merrill, a resident of nearby Hooks, Tex.

Eight Angels took called third strikes.

“I tip my hat to Nolan,” Dave Parker said. “He’s a true competitor.”

Parker then added:

“Maybe Durwood got caught up (in the idea of a potential no-hitter) and started giving Nolan some pitches he shouldn’t have rightfully had,” he said.

“The excitement of the crowd--maybe Durwood got caught up in that. He called some pitches with me that definitely were not strikes. But when you’re a legend like Nolan, there’s a tendency to give you pitches like that.”

Said Lance Parrish: “Obviously, it’s not easy to hit when the umpire is calling everything (a strike) that’s close to the strike zone. I think the umpire got caught up in the game.

“Nolan Ryan is a hero in Texas, and everybody wants to see him pitch a no-hitter. But still, you have to be fair about the deal.”

Parrish also was shaking his head after the game over the movement Ryan had on his pitches, seeming to indicate that Ryan somehow doctors the ball.

“I’m amazed at the way his ball moves,” Parrish said. “My last time up, he threw one in on me, and he threw one that ran away from me. I’m curious how he does that.”

One Angel who declined to be negative about Ryan was Manager Doug Rader. “That would detract from the effort he gave,” Rader said. “I’d like to think I’m above that. He threw pitches that were strikes.”