Rader Is Angry After 4-3 Defeat

Venting his anger publicly for the first time in a season filled with frustration, Angel Manager Doug Rader said his team must begin its much-promised and much-needed winning streak or else be left by the wayside in the competitive American League West.

“Either we get on the stick and start putting things together immediately or this is all over,” Rader said Friday night after the Mariners scored an unearned run in the eighth inning to edge the Angels, 4-3, before 27,434 at Anaheim Stadium.

The Angels remained eight games behind the Minnesota Twins, but fell 2 1/2 games behind the fifth-place Mariners. The Kansas City Royals won and moved to within a half-game of catching the sixth-place Angels.

“If we don’t start executing we will no longer be what we state we are, which is a contender,” Rader said after his team lost for the 13th time in 21 games. “We need, starting tomorrow, to do the job we’re expected to do. If it doesn’t take place immediately, if not sooner, then any statement to the contrary would be false, that statement being that we are a contender.

“It’s time to start playing (and being) what we’ve been saying we are. We haven’t a day to waste.”

Opening a home stand that club president Richard Brown had said was the team’s season, the Angels wasted a solid effort by Jim Abbott (9-8) and saw their home record fall to 24-27.

“We stink. That’s all I can say,” said Luis Polonia, whose foul bunt on a two-strike count prevented Dick Schofield from moving into scoring position with none out in the bottom of the ninth. Schofield was one of nine runners left on base by the Angels.

“We can’t do anything right,” Polonia added. “A bunt I cannot do. We play like minor leaguers, not like big leaguers. How can you expect us to win when we don’t do our job? Starting from me.

“We don’t do anything we’re supposed to do. We don’t get the guy over, we don’t score. You cannot blame the pitchers. The job they’ve done is good enough for us to be in first place. We’ve got to start doing our jobs or we’ll be packing to go home early.”

After Dave Winfield’s 399th career home run tied the score, 3-3, in the seventh, the Mariners scored an unearned run in the ninth.

Harold Reynolds led off with a slow grounder that Gary Gaetti could not pull from his glove, eventually making a throw to first that was barely late. Reynolds moved to second on a balk by Abbott and scored when Edgar Martinez lined a single over the glove of a leaping Schofield into left field.

“Jim Abbott pitched great,” Rader said. “He loses on a tough run. He jams a guy (Martinez) and loses on an unearned run.”

Jay Buhner’s homer to left in the first gave the Mariners a 2-0 lead, and a double by Buhner, a grounder and Tracy Jones’ sacrifice fly extended that lead to 3-0. The Angels scored twice in the fourth, the first run coming on Gaetti’s 12th homer of the season, and pulled even in the seventh.

However, they left runners on base in every inning except the second, seventh and eighth.

“You’ve got to try to hit smart and do things right at the plate,” Gaetti said. “(Rader) was right. We know anything can happen, but it’s better if you make things happen.”

That’s what Polonia was trying to do with his bunt in the ninth. “I wanted to get (Schofield) over, so I wanted to bunt. I didn’t want to swing and ground into a double play,” Polonia said.

“I play for the team and I want to do what I can to do the job. But I stink. I can’t even bunt. I got to go to bunting school.”

When Rader was finished speaking with reporters, he ushered them out of his office by saying, “Class dismissed.”

School may soon be out for the Angels, too.