Woes Continue as Angels Lose Ninth Straight : A 7-2 Loss to Blue Jays Brings to an End a Disastrous Month

That law of averages that the Angels keep talking about has yet to catch up with them.

For the ninth game in a row, the Angels were beaten, their latest loss a 7-2 defeat Sunday by the Blue Jays at Exhibition Stadium.

John Candelaria--obviously--was not the answer.

Neither was John Cerutti, the Toronto pitcher whose struggles of late had given the Angels reason to hope that their luck would change.

It didn’t, and they are now on their longest streak since 1980. Only one positive note can be found. May, a month in which the Angels went 9-17, is finally over.

“I’m just glad it’s the 31st,” Doug DeCinces said, shaking his head.

Not that June promises to start out any better.

Today, the Angels open a three-game series in New York against the Yankees. The same Yankees who own the best record in the American League. The same Yankees who began the current Angel problems by sweeping four games from them in Anaheim.

The Angel record for most consecutive losses is 11. History, obviously, is at hand.

But why worry about the Yankees, DeCinces asked.

“Right now, every team we play is tough,” he said. “It doesn’t make any difference who they are.”

Loss No. 9 proved that. Before encountering the Angels, Cerutti was struggling to retain his position as Toronto’s fifth starter. He has been in and out of the rotation, where he was 0-2 with a 6.75 ERA in 3 starts.

The Angels turned him into Cy Cerutti. The 27-year-old left-hander pitched a four-hitter, the low hit-total of his career and his third major league complete game. The only runs he allowed were solo home runs to Downing in the fourth inning and to DeCinces in the ninth.

Candelaria, meanwhile, looked precisely like a 33-year-old who hadn’t pitched in 18 days. Just back from the 15-day disabled list, Candelaria held the Blue Jays scoreless for three innings, wavered in the fourth and was unable to weather the fifth.

He surrendered two runs in the fourth on a double by Lloyd Moseby, a triple by George Bell and a single by Jesse Barfield.

He allowed three more runs in the fifth, although his defense was partly responsible for two of them.

With Garth Iorg on second and one out, Tony Fernandez singled to left. Darrell Miller, the Angel left fielder, had little chance of throwing Iorg out at home but tried anyway--enabling Fernandez to move up to second.

Moseby followed with a ground ball to second that could have resulted in an inning-ending double play had Fernandez been on first. Instead, the inning was extended long enough for the Angels to fall apart.

Candelaria struck out Cecil Fielder, for what should have been the third out. But catcher Bob Boone let strike three skitter away from him for a passed ball and brought home Fernandez. Fielder reached first and scored on the next pitch, which Bell sent over the right-field fence for his 16th home run of the season.

“Candelaria pitched better than it looked,” Angel Manager Gene Mauch said. “We missed a cutoff man and that gave them three runs.

“The left fielder (Miller) wanted to throw out Iorg so badly. Fine. But keep the ball down. The ball Moseby hits is a double play. They get only three runs . . . instead of 103.”

Mauch pulled Candelaria (4-2) after Bell’s home run, which gave the Blue Jays a 6-2 lead. Mike Cook finished up, allowing one run in 3 innings.

The last time the Angels lost nine games in a row, 23 members of the current roster weren’t Angels. Only Downing was around in 1980, although he spent five months on the disabled list that season.

“I really wasn’t there,” Downing said. “I can’t relate to that.”

Now Downing looks around the locker room and isn’t sure many of the young faces can relate to this nine-game crowbar that has cracked them between the eyes.

“We’re dealing with a situation where half of your club hasn’t experienced a winning atmosphere (in the major leagues),” Downing said. “When you start to lose like this, everything goes against you and you start looking around, expecting bad things to happen. You start expecting a guy to screw up two bunts and then hit a home run (as Baltimore’s Mike Young did last Thursday).

“That’s the frame of mind you have to fight against.”

When asked if he agreed with Downing’s assessment, DeCinces, a 13-year-veteran, nodded.

“Without a doubt,” DeCinces said. “That is a concern.

“We got off to a good start and then to go through this experience, it’s tough when you haven’t established yourself. You have to realize there are four months left, but when you haven’t gone through it before, you start dealing just in the ‘now’ and that’s when the pressure really builds up.”

But DeCinces wasn’t casting the blame solely on the under-30 set.

“The fact Brian and I are struggling has not helped at all,” he said.

And besides, those new Angels aren’t so young anymore. They’ve aged a lot over the last nine games.

Angel Notes

Brian Downing’s home run in the fourth inning against John Cerutti was his 154th as an Angel, tying him with Bobby Grich as the club’s all-time leader. “Big deal,” Downing said after the game. “That’s the farthest thing from my mind. I only care about one thing--and that’s winning the pennant. (The record) is not one of my priorities.” . . . Apart from the home runs by Downing and Doug DeCinces, the Angels’ only other hits were a first-inning single by Devon White and a seventh-inning ground-rule double by Dick Schofield. Cerutti, who walked two, faced only 33 batters. . . . DeCinces played first base in place of Wally Joyner, who sat out the game after being hit by a pitch on his right elbow Saturday. “He could’ve pinch-hit today,” Angel Manager Gene Mauch said. Mauch said Joyner would be in the starting lineup today against New York. . . . Toronto’s George Bell had a slightly better May than the Angels. With a run-scoring triple and a two-run home run, Bell wound up with 31 RBIs and 11 home runs during the month. Overall, he has 16 home runs and 42 RBIs.