Guzman Chills Angel Bats, 2-1 : Baseball: Ranger right-hander gives up only two hits in Texas victory, California’s second loss in a row.

The first two games of this series between the Angels and the Texas Rangers produced 59 hits, 29 runs and 8 hours 3 minutes of baseball, including 13 innings Saturday night.

But on Sunday afternoon, when balls often jump out of Anaheim Stadium in the sun-warmed air, a collection of outstanding pitching performances quieted the bats, and the Rangers’ Jose Guzman stymied the Angels with a two-hitter for a 2-1 Ranger victory before 40,542.

The Angels’ second consecutive loss cost them a game in the standings to Minnesota, which leads the American League West, and they fell into a second-place tie with the Rangers, three games back.

The Angels’ Kirk McCaskill, Floyd Bannister and Mark Eichhorn combined to give up seven hits. McCaskill (7-9), who gave up both runs, one of them unearned, struck out a season-high eight, walked two and gave up six hits in seven innings.

The Angels had scoring opportunities, but precious few of them, stranding only three runners. Their last and best chance came in the seventh inning, when the Angels put runners on first and second with none out after back-to-back walks to Dave Winfield and Dave Parker.

Guzman (3-3) might have been wise in walking Winfield.

The pitcher, who sat out all of 1989 after undergoing shoulder surgery and pitched only in the minors last season, did not give up a hit through four innings. But just as the beginnings of no-hit suspense were starting to take hold, Winfield squashed them with a 429-foot homer to center.

Guzman walked him on five pitches the next time he faced him.

“It’s probably good he walked me,” Winfield said. “I was going to get him again.”

Guzman walked Parker after putting Winfield on, bringing up Gary Gaetti, who had four hits in his past 27 at-bats and had hit into a double play with a runner on base and none out in the 10th inning of the Angels’ 7-4, 13-inning loss Saturday.

His instructions were to bunt.

“I let him swing away last night. I thought I’d try something new,” Angel Manager Doug Rader said.

Gaetti popped out to the catcher attempting to bunt, and the Rangers turned it into a double play by firing back to second, where they caught Winfield hurrying back to the bag.

Max Venable, who had had six hits in his past eight at-bats, struck out, ending the inning.

“You have to bunt in that situation,” Gaetti said. “I would have liked to have hit in that situation. If there had been a man on first only, I probably would have been hitting. But based on my previous two at-bats against this guy, hey, I’d better be bunting.”

Gaetti flew out to center and struck out before the seventh inning.

“We practice bunting every day,” Gaetti said. “The key to winning ball games is doing the little things.”

The Rangers scored their unearned run in the third inning on Jeff Huson’s groundball single up the middle. Ivan Rodriguez had reached on the first of two errors charged to shortstop Dick Schofield, whose throw to first was slightly off. Wally Joyner, later removed from the game by Rader out of concern about the effects of Joyner’s strained right calf, didn’t stretch fully to bring the ball in, and Rodriguez was awarded second.

Schofield’s two errors, which came one day after the Angels’ 14-game errorless streak came to an end, were his first in 35 games, and doubled his season total.

Schofield’s second error came in the sixth inning, when Jack Howell couldn’t pull in Schofield’s throw back to first on a double-play attempt that began at first.

“Both balls could have been caught,” Rader said.

The Rangers took a 2-0 lead in the fourth when Dean Palmer’s single drove in Ruben Sierra from third. Sierra, who had two doubles while going three for four, extended his hitting streak to 18 games, best in the American League this season.

After Gaetti’s failed bunt in the seventh, the Angels never managed another baserunner. Guzman, who pitched his first complete game since August of 1988 only last week against Oakland, finished strong, throwing the first two-hitter of his career. His previous best was a three-hitter, accomplished three times.

“It was very important to me after two years to show I could throw a complete game,” Guzman said. “People didn’t think I could throw a complete game.”

The only hits Guzman surrendered were Winfield’s homer and Venable’s fifth-inning single. Venable got as far as second after Ron Tingley’s two-out walk, but Luis Sojo popped out to third, stranding them both.

The homer was Winfield’s 16th of the season, far outpacing last season, when he did not hit his 16th until Sept. 11.

Winfield finished with 21 homers last year, the first two coming before he was traded to the Angels from New York.

He produced the only offense on a suddenly slow day for the Angels.