My First Cards

Dave Goltz was having a strange Jeckyll & Hyde year in ’82. He was a different pitcher every 30 days.

He made the team coming out of spring training, but only about a month later, the Dodgers released him outright for no apparent reason. I mean, his stats at the start of the year don’t look like a guy who you’d just throw away without trying to get anything for him.

Then he was looking for a team for another month, before the Angels decided to take a chance on him.

The first month he pitched for the Angels, he posted a fine 2.37 ERA in 19 innings of relief.

By that time, it was July, and he spent that month posting a 6.09 ERA in 34 IP.

In August he was better, but not quite enough. He managed to keep his ERA down to 4.15.

He had 24 days off at that point (no, he wasn’t sent to AAA).

Pitching the last couple weeks of September, he posted a 2.25 ERA.

But of course, it doesn’t end there. The Angels, in all their insanity, decided to put Dave on the post-season roster. They probably did this because he had post-season experience the previous season as a member of the World Champion Dodgers. Now, anybody paying attention will note that he just had a good streak and now it’s another month. What do you think happened?

Yep. You guessed it. He comes in to relieve Tommy John in game 4 of the ALCS and gives up 3 runs in 3 2/3 IP. John got the loss for that game but Goltz didn’t keep it close. If he had, then the Angels would’ve gone into the 9th inning down just 1 run. It might not have made any difference, but it’s also possible the Angels could’ve played some inspired ball and snuck out a win that would’ve put them in the World Series.

Thus is the streaky story of Dave Goltz in 1982. The next year would be his final season. Sad ending for this former 20-game winner.