Angels look to sustain winning ways against A’s

OAKLAND — Mike Scioscia had to stifle a chuckle Thursday night when a Bay Area reporter asked the Angels manager if an 8-3 victory in the opener of a four-game series against the American League West-leading Oakland Athletics could “set the tone” for the rest of the weekend.

“Ask me the same question in a week, and I’ll have an answer,” Scioscia said. “We sure hope so. We’ve been desperately trying to gain some momentum this whole season. It seems like when we take a couple steps forward, we don’t play at a high level and pull the rug out from under ourselves.

“Hopefully, we’re going to move forward, but there’s a lot of things we need to do on a consistent basis. There’s still time, but we’re going to have to bring it every night and do the things you saw tonight. We haven’t been able to bottle that.”

The Angels are the only team in the AL with two winning streaks of at least seven games, but they also lost eight of nine in early April, 11 of 14 from June 24 to May 8 and were swept in a four-game series at home by the lowly Houston Astros from May 31 to June 3.

Their season-long one-step-forward, two-steps-back dance has buried them 10 games back with a 48-52 record. The pattern has been even more pronounced over the last few weeks because superb starts from Jered Weaver and C.J. Wilson have been followed by shoddy starts from Jerome Williams and Joe Blanton.

The Angels can shave a nice chunk off the A’s lead with a sweep this weekend, and they play three games at second-place Texas beginning Monday, but the pitching matchup doesn’t favor them Friday night.

Williams, who is 0-3 with a 14.54 earned-run average in his last four starts, in which he’s allowed 26 hits and walked nine in 13 innings, will oppose A’s All-Star Bartolo Colon, who is 13-3 with a 2.52 ERA and threw a four-hit shutout in Angel Stadium last Sunday.

“We have to win every game, but if we can win against Oakland and Texas, it’s even better,” said Wilson, who improved to 11-6 on the season and 7-1 with a 1.96 ERA in his last eight starts with a win Thursday night.

“There’s no sugar-coating it, no way to make it look all rosy. It stinks. We’re way down in the standings. We have to really put it together. Otherwise, it’s going to be a long off-season.”

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