Vande Berg Trips Up Angels Again

It’s been a productive 24 hours for Texas reliever Ed Vande Berg.

Vande Berg earned the victory in the Rangers’ 17-inning, 3-2 victory Saturday night and came back to earn a save Sunday as Texas beat the Angels, 8-3.

“A win and a save in the same day,” Ranger Manager Bobby Valentine said. “That’s a nice doubleheader. Vandy did a heck of a job.”

Rookie Cecil Espy went 3 for 5 with 3 runs scored, an RBI and a stolen base as the Rangers took the final 2 games of the 4-game series.

Ruben Sierra drove in four runs with a sacrifice fly in the fifth and a three-run homer, his 21st, in the eighth.

Charlie Hough (13-15) allowed four hits before leaving with two out in the sixth when he aggravated a muscle pull in his left hip. Vande Berg earned his second save, allowing 3 hits in 3 innings.

“I started feeling it in the third and fourth,” said Hough, who has a 1.40 ERA in his last 13 starts against the Angels. “Then it really started to ache. But it’s not bad. I’ll get over it.”

The Rangers scored two runs in the first. Jerry Browne walked, Espy singled and Pete O’Brien singled to load the bases with none out. One run scored when Terry Clark threw a wild pitch and Mike Stanley drove in another with a sacrifice fly.

Texas made it 4-0 in the fifth on Sierra’s sacrifice fly and Stanley’s RBI single.

The Angels scored twice in the sixth on Johhny Ray’s RBI single and Brian Downing’s sacrifice fly, and Bob Boone had an RBI single for the Angels in the ninth.

Angel starter Clark (6-4) pitched 7 innings, giving up 11 hits.

“All their left-handed hitters were only trying to slap the ball to left field. They were doing it all day,” he said.

Angel Manager Cookie Rojas, who was ejected in the 15th inning Saturday night, said fatigue was partly a factor in Sunday’s loss.

“We were tired, no question,” Rojas said. “But a guy like Hough is not easy to handle, even if we were coming off a 1 1/2 hour game, or under any conditions.”

Downing said there’s some relief ahead, since the Angels are heading into their final homestand. “It’s important for us to finish hard,” he said. “I hope we just don’t play out the string. We’ve come back nicely from that terrible start, and it would be a shame to give that back the final two weeks.”