Angels Share the Blame After 12-Inning Loss to A’s : Baseball: Langston threw a pickoff attempt away, and Ray failed to turn a double play.

The blame was his, Mark Langston said, for the errant pickoff throw in the sixth inning that set up the Oakland Athletics’ fifth run Tuesday night.

“You can’t throw the ball away in that situation and turn it into a situation where they just have to tap balls to score,” he said. “I think we showed we can play with them. If I’d done a little better and done my part, it would have been different.”

No, second baseman Johnny Ray said, the blame was his for not turning a 12th-inning double play on what he called “a tailor-made ball” hit by Carney Lansford that put the winning run on base. “I even knocked the ball down and had time to get Carney (at first),” Ray said. “No question, it was a double-play ball.”

Doug Rader wasn’t blaming anybody.

The Angel manager praised his players for things they did right in the 7-5 loss to the A’s at Anaheim Stadium. But when things went wrong, they went wrong enough to spoil the comeback, sparked by Dante Bichette’s three-run home run in the sixth, and saddle the Angels with a disappointing defeat.

“Frequently a good effort is overshadowed by something that didn’t turn out particularly well,” Rader said. “I like the way we competed. We certainly could have had more than two runs going into the sixth. We hit a lot of balls on the button. The fact that those balls didn’t fall early was important.”

A combination of three relievers held the Angels to one hit in the final six innings, while the A’s capitalized on a bad throw to first base by Langston--a two-time Gold Glove winner--and two favorable hops in the 12th to get Mike Norris his first major league victory since May 16, 1983.

Oakland had a 4-2 lead when Langston walked Dave Henderson to lead off the sixth. While trying to hold Henderson at first, he threw the ball past Wally Joyner, giving Henderson two extra bases. Henderson scored on Lance Blankenship’s suicide squeeze.

“You know you have to play very well against Oakland, and I think we did,” said Langston, who said he had better stuff than in his seven hitless innings against Seattle last Wednesday. He gave up seven hits and four earned runs Tuesday. “I don’t think I did my job.”

Ray’s job in the 12th--after Walt Weiss led off with a single, was forced at second by Stan Javier and went to third on Rickey Henderson’s single to left--was to turn Lansford’s grounder into a double play. He didn’t. He got Lansford at first, but Javier scored, and Henderson scored on a single to center field by Jose Canseco off Mark Eichhorn (0-1).

“It came up on me. I missed the ball, and that was it,” Ray said.

That wasn’t it. Rader made sure to come over afterward and console him with a pat on the shoulder and words of encouragement. “Don’t let it get you down,” Rader advised.

Ray shook his head. “It’s only eight games into the season. There’s 150-something left,” he said.

Rader wasn’t finished. “It’s not that,” he said, “it’s that you’ve been playing great defense.”

One lapse, though, was all the A’s needed.

“Against a ballclub like the A’s, you’ve got to win the game,” Chili Davis said. “You can’t ever think you have the game won. You’ve got to go out and score and score some more.

“They’re world champions and they’re supposed to be cocky. That’s how they got to be world champions.”