Orioles Embarrass Langston : Baseball: Angel pitcher is frustrated after giving up eight walks and four runs in Baltimore’s 9-1 victory.

Few teams have walked all over Mark Langston as the Baltimore Orioles did Wednesday night.

On a night when a victory by their prized left-hander might have given the Angels hope of reversing the skid that threatens to take them out of the American League West pennant race, the Angels instead reverted to the dismal form that has characterized their struggles during the first month of the season.

Langston matched a career high by issuing eight walks over six innings to the Orioles, who put together two walks and four singles in the fifth for the foundation of a 9-1 rout at Anaheim Stadium.

It was a defeat Langston took hard.

“I’m embarrassed, totally embarrassed that it happened,” Langston (2-3) said after the league’s weakest-hitting team produced four runs against him on seven hits, all singles. The Orioles didn’t manage an extra-base hit until Bill Ripken lined a two-run double off Mark Clear, and totaled only two. The second was a two-run home run in the ninth by Cal Ripken, who joined Ernie Banks and Vern Stephens as the only players to hit 200 home runs as a major league shortstop.

“I was overthrowing the ball, rushing,” Langston said. “It was terrible.”

The Angels’ sixth defeat in seven games and 16th in their last 21 left them 10 1/2 games behind the first-place Oakland Athletics, the Angels’ first double-digit deficit of the season. Worse, it obscured the memory of Chuck Finley’s exemplary three-hit shutout of the Orioles on Tuesday, which the Angels had hoped might lift them out of their funk.

Instead, they slid back.

“Obviously, we’re not in the situation we want,” Langston said of the sixth-place Angels. “Chuck did such a great job (Tuesday) and I wanted to keep the ball moving. I let the team down, and that’s very frustrating for myself.”

So bad did Langston deem his performance that he wondered why Oriole Manager Frank Robinson asked home plate umpire Larry McCoy to check the ball and his cap for pine tar in the second inning.

“Beats me why he bothered,” Langston said. “I probably should have used it.”

The Orioles seem to profit more by taking pitches, as shown by a league-low .229 batting average and a league-leading 134 walks. Langston said he felt “as strong as I’ve felt this year,” but that abundance of strength didn’t translate into the fearsome fastball and delicate control that allowed him to command $16 million in the free-agent market last winter.

Langston struggled from the outset but helped his cause by starting a pickoff in the first and was aided by Lance Parrish’s throw on Phil Bradley’s stolen base attempt in the third. He was flailing by the fifth, in which the key hits were Randy Milligan’s two-run single and two-out RBIs by Dave Segui and Bob Melvin.

“I think he’s just trying to do too much right now,” pitching coach Marcel Lachemann said. “It’s a thing guys fall into once in a while. Bases on ball don’t make it easy.

“It’s more a matter of getting to the point where he’s relaxing than mechanics and things like that. Right now, it’s a matter of him not trying to do too much.”

The Angels couldn’t do much at all against Oriole starter Pete Harnisch (3-0), although Harnisch owed much credit for the complete-game victory to his outfielders. Parrish was robbed three times, once to each field, and Dante Bichette’s long fly ball to center with two on in the sixth was snared by Mike Devereaux to preserve a shutout, at least temporarily.

The only Angel run came in the seventh, on a double by Mark McLemore and a single by Luis Polonia.

Said Chili Davis, who was one for four: “We get hits, but we’re not getting key hits. It’s tough to elaborate on things because there’s going to be a lot of negative things, and I don’t want to dwell on those.

“This team will get hot. It’s frustrating for the front office and the fans, but more frustrating for us because we aren’t coming together as a team. But it’s going to happen. We have to bear down and try hard and not try to do too much. We each have to do our individual job.”

Angel Notes

Jimmie Reese, who suffered a mild heart attack last week, was released from St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica and is resting at home. The 85-year-old conditioning coach is not expected back in uniform until after the All-Star break.

Shortstop Dick Schofield is scheduled to undergo another Magnetic Resonance Imaging test today at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood to determine how his strained hamstring is healing. Schofield was injured during spring training and has yet to play this season. Reliever Bob McClure, on the disabled list because of a sore left elbow, threw for 15 minutes Wednesday--including six minutes off the mound--and reported no discomfort. He will continue to throw if no problems arise today.

Several Anaheim Stadium employees said they had heard Wednesday that Brian Downing had retired and was to be paid $500,000 by the team. In truth, the retiree was pitcher Mike Smithson, who was released by the Angels the weekend before the season opened.