Inside Pitch (april 29-may 5)

When Steve Carlton misses a turn, as he did on April 28, that's news. It was only the seventh time he has skipped a start since joining the Phils in 1972. Carlton, who is 40, left his next start last Friday after five shutout innings because his shoulder stiffened. People are starting to wonder how much longer Lefty can be a quality starter.

He was 13-7 last year, but he had only one complete game and struck out 163 in 229 innings. In three previous seasons he had fanned 740 in 769? innings. On Friday night against Houston, when his best fastball hit 85 mph and most of the rest got only as high as 82, he didn't strike out a soul. The opposing pitcher, Nolan Ryan, struck out 10 and left Carlton in the dust in their alltime strikeout race.

Nobody knows exactly what's wrong with Carlton. He doesn't talk to the media, and he has become a law unto himself medically. He won't deign to visit the team physician, preferring to rely on the strenuous martial arts program of Gus Hoefling, the conditioning coach. For whatever it's worth, team physician Phillip Marone thinks Carlton is suffering from osteoarthritis, an irreversible condition prevalent in the shoulders of 40-year-old pitchers. Especially susceptible are those with more than 4,800 innings in the big leagues.

The final score from Cincinnati last Wednesday was Atlanta 17, Cincinnati 9. And it wasn't a football game. Just call it Mayday on May Day.

?There were 38 hits, none by Pete Rose and 25 by the Braves, who led 6-0 after the first inning and 12-0 after the second.

?The contest was very soggy, with a 2:41 rain delay in the top of the fifth and wet innings before and after. Mario Soto and Cesar Cedeno performed a Dominican rain dance in the Cincinnati dugout before the rain delay with their team trailing 13-2, but Rafael Ramirez countered with a Dominican stop-the-rain dance in the Braves' dugout.

?The actual game took a mere 2:47. After the first couple of innings, the Braves cared only about getting through the fifth to make it official. But they were so hot that when Rick Cerone chased a pitch just to hurry matters along, he ended up with a hit.

? Reds pitcher Frank Pastore saw his ERA go from 3.68 to 10.38. His line was 1? 107701.

? Reds trainer Larry Starr was ejected from the game in the seventh. Concerned about the health hazards of playing in the rain, Starr remarked to umpire Jim Quick, "How can you continue to play this game? The four of you together don't have one brain." For that, Starr got the boot.

Cleveland manager Pat Corrales suspects the Orioles practice a little espionage in Baltimore's Municipal Stadium. According to Corrales, in the last three games of the Indians' April 25-28 visit, one of the O's, watching TV in the clubhouse, relayed the Cleveland catcher's signs to the dugout, where they were signaled to the Oriole batter. Reserve infielder Lenn Sakata was a primary suspect. Corrales didn't need James Bond to ferret out this info; his batting coach, Bobby Bonds, figured out the ruse. "We called every one of our pitches by watching their dugout," Corrales says.