Angels Finish Trip With a Flurry, 10-5 : Baseball: They complete sweep of Royals, and increase errorless streak to 13.

As well as the Angels have played at times, they haven’t put together a lengthy winning streak like the Twins or Rangers. So, when Gary Gaetti said Wednesday the Angels are peaking, he raised a few eyebrows.

“We’re not peaking--we’re p-e-e-k-i-n-g. Peeking at the Twins,” the Angel third baseman said with a mischievous grin.

A 10-5 victory over the Royals Wednesday left the Angels peeking at the division leaders from the reasonably close vantage point of 3 1/2 games.

After opening their longest trip of the season with three dispiriting losses in Boston, the Angels finished with a flourish--and the American League record for consecutive errorless games (13).

They won four of their last five and six of eight to improve their road record to 23-15--the best in baseball. With flawless fielding Wednesday, they broke the AL record of 12 consecutive errorless games set by the 1963 Detroit Tigers. They moved within two games of the major league record, set in 1975 by the Cincinnati Reds and matched earlier this year by the St. Louis Cardinals.

“We’re just playing good, solid baseball. Guys are getting a hit when we need it, making the pitches when we need it, making the plays when we need it,” said Gaetti, who contributed a hit and an RBI to the Angels’ six-run, seven-hit first inning.

Royal starter Mark Gubicza (3-4), who had attended his father’s funeral Tuesday in Philadelphia, gave up five consecutive hits after retiring leadoff hitter Luis Polonia and lasted only two-thirds of an inning. Catcher Lance Parrish, playing his first game since June 9, had a run-scoring double and Luis Sojo lined a two-run single as the Angels sent 11 men to the plate.

“If we play good, solid ball against everybody, if we’re consistent all the way through, we’re going to be all right,” Gaetti said. “Playing good defense is really important. Getting the record is terrific. Those things are all nice. It’s pretty cool.”

The Angels staked starter Mark Langston to a 9-0 lead. He gave up back-to-back home runs to Danny Tartabull and Mike Macfarlane in a four-run third inning, but he regained enough composure in his eight-inning stint to win his fifth consecutive decision and raise his record to 11-2.

“You just try to go right at guys with that kind of lead. Thank goodness we had that kind of lead,” said Langston, who is tied for second in victories with teammate Chuck Finley, one behind Minnesota’s Scott Erickson.

The Elias Sports Bureau, which compiles statistics for the major leagues, was unable to determine Wednesday the last time one team had two 11-game winners at this date. The Athletics had two 20-game winners last season in Bob Welch (27) and Dave Stewart (22), but Stewart had only nine victories at this stage of the season. Welch had 12 and Scott Sanderson, who went on to win 17 games, had nine.

The Angels took 20 minutes to build their huge lead, long enough to force Langston to warm up twice. He didn’t mind the extra work.

“Heck, I’d do it any day of the week. I’ll warm up two or three times if they give me that kind of support,” said Langston, who has pitched into the seventh inning or later 13 consecutive times and 14 times in 15 starts this season.

“I felt very strong (despite working on three days’ rest). A couple of pitches, I get up to guys in that one inning. I was fortunate we played outstanding defense behind me. We had a lot of offense, but the defense was great.”

The difference between Langston a year ago and now is obvious: he was 4-8 after 15 starts last season.

So is the difference in the Angels’ defensive play: They have committed 35 errors in 71 games this season, after committing 63 in 71 games last season. Their final fielding percentage was .978, second-worst in the AL; they took a .987 percentage into Wednesday’s game.

“This is a different team than what we had last year. They really went out and improved our defense,” Langston said.

The Angels, who return home for a seven-game stand, had a 7-6 record on this trip and lost one game in the standings.

But it might have been much worse after the three consecutive defeats at Fenway Park. They won the final game at Boston, split two games in Milwaukee, split four games in Detroit and swept three from the Royals.

Their experiment with a four-man rotation also worked, as Jim Abbott pitched well in a no-decision and Kirk McCaskill, Langston and Finley won on three days’ rest.

“There were a lot of reasons for the way we started out and I’m just glad to see the guys able to bounce back the way we did,” Manager Doug Rader said. “This was a tough one. Thirteen games is a long time to be on the road.”