Long Night’s Journey Dazes Angels

They were flat and they were tired and they were flat-out tired of seeing palmballs from Ranger right-hander Jose Guzman, but the Angels weren’t prepared to say their 8-0 loss to Texas Friday was caused by anything other than the weariness of a long journey and short sleep.

Working on three days’ rest for the second time since the pitching rotation was reduced to four starters, Mark Langston (12-3) struggled with his location and lost his six-game winning streak.

Former Angel Brian Downing hit a towering home run to left field in the second inning, and the Rangers added four runs in the fourth and three in the sixth--two on Juan Gonzalez’s homer against Langston--to permit Guzman (4-3) to coast.

Langston was relieved by Mike Fetters after yielding Gonzalez’s home run, the first time in 14 starts Langston had failed to pitch at least seven innings. The seven runs represented the most he has given up this season, and the defeat marked the first time he lost after an Angel loss in eight opportunities--since he was defeated by the Oakland Athletics on April 27.

“You get pounded. I’ve been pounded before,” Langston said. “There are days you don’t do the right job. I felt stronger (on three days’ rest) than I thought I would.”

Angel pitching coach Marcel Lachemann saw no signs that Langston was suffering in the four-man setup.

“He made a couple of pitches that he didn’t get the ball where he wanted to, and they’re a pretty good-hitting ballclub,” Lachemann said.

“Mark didn’t have a good game tonight, obviously, but he’s had some very good games through this stretch.”

Langston is 1-1 in games he pitched on three days’ rest, as is Kirk McCaskill. Jim Abbott has a victory and a no-decision, while Chuck Finley is 2-0.

Since Joe Grahe’s unsuccessful attempt to win the fifth starting job June 18, the other four starters are a combined 8-4 with four no-decisions. Manager Doug Rader said he didn’t think consecutive starts on three days’ rest were the cause of Langston’s problems Friday, but he said the four-man rotation is subject to change after the All-Star break.

“One of the aspects that remains to be seen is whether it’ll work over the long haul,” Rader said. “Everybody readily accepted it and was willing. If it doesn’t work, we’ll adjust. I’m not going to be obstinate.”

Guzman, who sat out the 1989 season after suffering a partially torn rotator cuff, gave up three hits and struck out four in six innings. He gave up only two singles last Sunday in a 2-1 victory at Anaheim Stadium.

“That palmball he has drives me crazy,” Angel left fielder Luis Polonia said. “He didn’t have that pitch before. It’s the strangest one I’ve ever seen, the way the ball breaks. When he throws it, it’s like it never wants to get to the plate.

“That pitch is harder to hit than a knuckleball. You cannot wait on it. I stand there waiting, waiting and I get tired of waiting and swing at a bad pitch.”

Rader contended that Langston didn’t make many bad pitches, merely inopportune pitches. As examples, he cited Steve Buechele’s two-run double over third on a pitch that had jammed the Ranger third baseman, and Ivan Rodriguez’s RBI single up the middle on an 0-and-1 fastball.

Are the Angels’ uninspired losses to the Royals and Rangers symptoms of a developing slump?

“We played bad against Kansas City and we get here at 4 a.m. (after a charter flight from Ontario airport to Dallas). I thought we were a little flat, and that could have been from our early morning arrival,” Dave Parker said.

“We still have a chance to win this series, and the other game we got blown out (a 12-5 loss to the Royals Thursday), we still won that series.

“We’ve been fairly consistent. We haven’t won 15 or 16 in a row, but we’ve won a lot of series. Right now, our approach is to win series. If we do, we should be right there at the end of the season.”