Few Runs, Many Hits for Angels : Baseball: They get 15 hits and put runners on base in eight innings, but not enough score in 5-2 loss to Toronto.

They had men on base in every inning but the seventh, they tied a season-high by getting 15 hits and it still wasn’t enough.

“You’ve got to work hard to do that,” said first baseman Wally Joyner, who contributed two hits toward the dubious achievement pulled off by the Angels in their 5-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays Tuesday.

How can 15 hits not be enough? When they are hits that move runners along instead of driving runners in. When they come with no one out or one out--but not with two out, when they could unsettle the opposing pitcher and break the game open.

The Blue Jays opened the roof on the SkyDome Tuesday night but repeatedly closed the door on the Angels’ efforts to concoct a big inning. Starting pitcher Todd Stottlemyre (9-7) yielded runs in the third and fourth innings but quashed potential sprees in both, striking out a season-high eight to help Toronto close within 3 1/2 games of the AL East-leading Boston Red Sox.

“Even though guys were getting on base and getting good pitches to hit, when they had to get an out, we were getting breaking balls and forkballs, which are not easy to hit,” Lance Parrish said after the Angels’ seventh loss in their last 10 games.

“Once we got a couple of guys on, they changed their pitching pattern and got the big out when they needed to. They made some really good pitches when they had to.”

The last time the Angels amassed 15 hits, they rolled past Milwaukee, 10-3, on May 26. Bert Blyleven was the starter that night--as he was Tuesday--but the results were vastly different.

Blyleven (7-5) said he made only one bad pitch, that to Tony Fernandez in the fifth inning, but that turned out to be one too many. Toronto chipped away for two runs in the third on two singles, a sacrifice and Junior Felix’s two-run single.

The Blue Jays hit Blyleven hard in the fifth inning.

Consecutive triples by Felix and Fernandez with one out accounted for the first fifth-inning run, and Kelly Gruber drove in the second with a grounder. Blyleven walked George Bell and gave up a single to Fred McGriff before yielding to Scott Bailes, who gave up a run-scoring double to John Olerud.

In his last four starts, covering 22 1/3 innings, Blyleven has allowed 32 hits and has an earned-run average of 7.66. But neither he nor Manager Doug Rader was inclined to interpret trends or look beyond the obvious Tuesday.

“The pitches to Lee and Felix were good pitches. On Felix’s triple, it was a fastball I wanted in and I got it in,” Blyleven said. “The only bad pitch I thought I made was to Fernandez when he hit that triple down the (right-field) line. Gruber hit a ground ball. . . . Nobody likes to lose.”

Certainly not Rader. “There’s no sense in over-analyzing things,” he said. “We didn’t make the pitches when we had to, and we didn’t get the base hits when we had to. It’s as simple as that.”

The Angels could have complicated things for Stottlemyre in the early going. After Johnny Ray doubled in the third inning--the second hit in his four-for-five night--and Joyner and Dave Winfield singled, Stottlemyre retired Max Venable on a fly to left field and struck out Parrish.

In the fourth inning, after Luis Polonia’s double scored Jack Howell, Stottlemyre induced Ray to pop up to third baseman Gruber in foul territory. He walked Joyner but struck out Winfield on a nasty breaking ball.

“He threw me a bad one on the first pitch, and I was still mad at myself for swinging at it,” Winfield said.

The Angels left 13 runners on base and were hitless in five attempts with runners in scoring position and two out. With every missed scoring opportunity, their chances of challenging in the AL West recede. Their loss Tuesday left them 11 1/2 games out, two games short of the halfway point of the season.

“This is just a frustrating period for us. It’s been frustrating all year,” Parrish said. “We’ve never really been able to get on track and play the way we were expected to. One thing or another beats us or we beat ourselves. We’re going to slowly slip out of this race unless we get things going. . . .

“It seemed like we were one hit away tonight. Every time we’d get an inning going, we were one hit away from busting things open. We just weren’t able to do it.”

Or, as Joyner saw it, they weren’t allowed to do it. They got five hits off Frank Wills, who relieved Stottlemyre for the sixth inning, but Toronto turned two double plays to minimize those threats. A single by Ray and an opposite-field double by Joyner put runners on second and third in the ninth inning, but Tom Henke came in to retire Winfield on a pop in foul territory behind first, Venable on a pop to short and Parrish on a grounder to third.

“It’s not so much we didn’t get timely hits as they got the out when they needed it,” Joyner said. “Johnny Ray had a great night, but the only time he needed a hit he didn’t get it (in the fourth inning). I’m sure he would have traded a couple of those hits for a hit in that at-bat.”

That option wasn’t available to him. “Getting 15 hits and losing is kind of hard to do,” Parrish said, “but we’ve been doing a lot of things that don’t seem easy.”

Angel Notes

Chili Davis was scratched from Tuesday’s lineup during batting practice after he developed back spasms during his pregame jog. He was scheduled to start as the designated hitter. Luis Polonia became the DH and Max Venable was inserted as the left fielder. Davis’ status is day to day. The lineup was the Angels’ 78th in 79 games.

Infielder Donnie Hill’s bruised left foot improved enough Tuesday for him to forgo X-rays, but it was too swollen for him to play. Hill injured the foot when he fouled a ball off it in the seventh inning Monday at Cleveland. It was initially placed in a cast, but that was removed.

“It’s feeling better but it’s still sore and swollen all around,” he said. He’s expected to be idled for a few days, according to trainer Ned Bergert.

The Blue Jays set a major league record Tuesday by exceeding 2 million in attendance in their 42nd home date. The sellout crowd of 49,836--their 22nd consecutive sellout--left them at 2,039,644. The 1982 Dodgers held the previous record by reaching 2 million in 44 dates.