Langston Again Gets No Help, 2-0 : Baseball: Left-hander has won only once in his last eight outings. White Sox push Angels 7 1/2 games out of second place.

With the crowd roaring and his heart pounding, Chili Davis couldn’t be sure what third base coach Moose Stubing was telling him to do as he rounded third base on Luis Polonia’s pinch-hit single in the ninth inning.

“I wasn’t sure if he sent me or not,” said Davis, who had singled and moved to second when Lance Parrish walked. “I don’t know. All I heard was a voice saying, ‘Come on,’ or ‘Stop.’ It could have been ‘Hold up.” When you’re running the bases, pretty normally you’re going to score on a hit like that.”

It has become normal for Mark Langston to get little offensive support from the Angels, so it fit his puzzling pattern that Davis was thrown out at home by left fielder Ivan Calderon to clinch the White Sox’s 2-0 victory over the Angels Monday at Anaheim Stadium.

Langston (4-8) had previously been involved in three 2-1 games, losing twice and once getting a no-decision. This time, the Angels couldn’t muster any runs against left-hander Greg Hibbard (6-4) and Bobby Thigpen, who relieved Hibbard with one out in the ninth to record his league-leading 24th save.

“It’s tough. I mean, I’m at a loss for words,” said Langston, who has lost his last three decisions and has won only once in his last eight outings. “It’s very tough. We’ve been playing very well and we realize those guys have been playing very well. I didn’t have very good stuff tonight and I was fortunate to have a great defense behind me. I didn’t pick them up.”

The loss dropped the Angels 8 1/2 games behind the Oakland Athletics and 7 1/2 behind the second-place White Sox, who have won five consecutive games.

“He gives up two runs in four straight starts and he hasn’t gotten anything to show for it. That’s a shame,” Manager Doug Rader said of his $16-million left-hander. “The only thing that’s worrisome is that psychologically, it can become a trend. . . . It establishes a mindset. The more it is overstated it has a tendency to become permanent, and I don’t want to do that.”

The Angels’ inability to score Monday probably was due more to Chicago’s strong defense than any psychological quirks.

“A lot of guys hit a lot of good line drives--not me--and they made some good defensive plays,” said Brian Downing, who reached scoring position in the third after he was hit by a pitch and Dick Schofield singled, only to be stranded when Wally Joyner grounded out.

“They’ve certainly earned their way to this point. There’s no reason to doubt them. For them go to into Oakland and take three, they’ve got to be playing well.”

Downing was especially impressed by Chicago’s defensive play. “They’ve got some good positioning. Positioning’s part of the game,” he said. “You’ve got to be at the right spot and they were, especially on that last play.”

The game came down to that play after Langston gave up seven hits, including an RBI-single to Robin Ventura in the sixth and Carlton Fisk’s sixth home run of the season in the seventh, a first-pitch drive into the left-field seats. Langston, who got a modest four strikeouts to reach 100 for the season, had almost escaped the sixth unscathed. Dave Gallagher and Scott Fletcher had opened the inning with back-to-back singles, and Gallagher tried to score from third on Ozzie Guillen’s fly to center. Center fielder Dante Bichette made a perfect throw, and catcher Parrish managed to hold onto the ball after Gallagher barreled into him and knocked him head over heels.

“Dante made a great play and Lance held onto the ball. A great play,” Rader said.

Langston got a two-strike count on the next batter, Sammy Sosa, before walking him. Ventura followed with a two-strike single to right.

“In that situation, I wasn’t going to let (Sosa) hurt me because I knew I had a left-hander coming up,” Langston said. “I wanted to try and make him swing at something out of the strike zone, but he wouldn’t. I had Ventura where I wanted him, and let him get away. It was a stupid pitch, a slider out over the plate. I’ll see that in my dreams.”

Said Chicago Manager Jeff Torborg: “That’s a big big hit by Ventura with two strikes on him.”

Fisk drove in the second run with his 342nd career home run, in the seventh. “It’s not as if I’m going out there and getting beat up,” Langston said. “My job is to try to keep the game as close as possible.”

The Angels began their bid to tie it against Hibbard, who left after yielding a one-out single to Davis. Thigpen walked Parrish and got Bichette on a called third strike before Polonia laced a single down the left-field line.

Calderon, who had thrown Davis out trying to take third on a single by Parrish in the fourth inning, played it perfectly. “With two strikes, we move to the line,” Calderon said. “He’s just trying to make contact.”

Stubing blamed himself for ending the Angels’ budding rally. “I sent him and I shouldn’t have sent him. I should have played it safe,” he said. “The next hitter would have had a shot at sending in the winning run. I was trying to get Chili in when his run didn’t matter. His run didn’t mean nothing. It was bad judgment.”

Davis wouldn’t let him take all of the blame. “If he did say he sent me, it was partly my fault. I thought on a ball down the line over the third baseman’s head, there was no play,” he said. “You play a shift on a guy, you don’t play down the line.”

Angel Notes

Brian Downing said Monday that has been unjustly cast aside by the team for whom he has played more games (1,595) than any other player. His appearance in Monday’s lineup was his 30th in 72 games and he entered with a .228 average, his highest since the first week of the season. However, he said he would not ask for a trade and doesn’t intend to quit. “I wish I could,” Downing said. “I’m not man enough to do that and a lot of people would be very disappointed in me if I do that,” said Downing, who will be 40 in October and is in the last year of a contract that pays him $1.25 million.

The Angels and Houston Astros are said to be near a deal in which the Angels would acquire second baseman Bill Doran in exchange for pitchers Willie Fraser or Mike Fetters. The Angels reportedly have long been interested in Doran, and sources in Houston said Doran expects to be traded soon. The Angels’ regular second baseman, Johnny Ray, has not recovered from shoulder problems.