No Surprise That Darling Beats Angels : Baseball: He pitches 3-2 victory over Langston, who loses on his 31st birthday.

Ron Darling hardly surprised the Angels with his assortment of pitches Tuesday night. After all, they had seen the Oakland right-hander 10 days earlier, and before that, they had scouted him with the idea of acquiring him to be their fifth starter.

“He throws a fastball going away like a sinker, a forkball and a curveball,” Angel left fielder Luis Polonia said. “It’s the same thing.”

The result also was the same for Darling and the A’s Tuesday. With the Angels continually chasing his forkball and obliging him with groundouts, Darling gave up two runs over 7 2/3 innings in earning his third consecutive victory. Rick Honeycutt came on in relief in the eighth and Dennis Eckersley recorded his 35th save as the A’s edged the Angels, 3-2, at the Oakland Coliseum and stayed within six games of the division-leading Twins.

“I’m feeling comfortable here in the sense that it’s good to pitch well, but I want us to win and really turn it on,” said Darling, who shut out the Angels for seven innings Aug. 10 in an eventual 3-1 Oakland victory at Anaheim Stadium. “Right now, I just feel tired. I’m happy in the sense we won, but we’ve got to continue to play good baseball, get some key hits and some wins.”

The A’s had lost seven of their previous eight games, but Dave Henderson’s mastery of Angel starter Mark Langston (15-7) helped them open their 12-game home stand with a victory, their 10th in 11 games against the Angels this season.

Henderson singled twice in three at-bats against Langston, once his teammate with the Mariners and still his neighbor in suburban Seattle, increasing his success against Langston this season to 10 for 12. For his career, Henderson is 16 for 34 against Langston.

“There’s no doubt this year he’s done everything right against me. I can’t get him out when I need to,” said Langston, who is 0-6 with three no-decisions against the A’s since Aug. 12, 1987.

The Angels scored first, in the third inning, after Lance Parrish was hit by a pitch, took second on Luis Sojo’s sacrifice, third on a grounder and scored on Polonia’s single to left. The A’s scored twice in the bottom of the inning. Mike Bordick walked and was safe at second when Sojo dropped shortstop Dick Schofield’s throw on a double-play grounder hit by Rickey Henderson.

Dave Henderson followed with a single to left that scored Bordick and sent Rickey Henderson to third. Rickey Henderson scored on Terry Steinbach’s sacrifice fly.

Oakland added a run in the fifth inning when Brook Jacoby’s fly to the warning track in left-center scored Rickey Henderson.

That run proved important when Polonia created a run for the Angels in the eighth inning. He bunted up the third base line for a hit, stole second and third and scored on Shawn Abner’s single.

“We were silent all night. I thought, ‘Let me move around and see what happens,’ ” Polonia said. “But it ain’t enough to win.

“I want to beat that guy (Darling) so bad, but it doesn’t seem to happen. I think we want to beat the A’s so bad we don’t do the things we’re supposed to do. . . .

“We’ve been swinging at too many bad pitches from Darling. I’m pretty sure, if we look at the tapes, he threw three times more balls than strikes. The thing is, we’ve been swinging at pitches in the dirt and helping him out.”

Darling was grateful for whatever help the Angels provided, because he considered Langston a tough opponent and knew the A’s weren’t likely to score many runs.

“He’s one of the best pitchers I’ve ever seen, the best left-hander I’ve ever seen,” said Darling, who has a 1.69 earned-run average in four starts for Oakland. “I wanted to go out and pitch aggressively and pound it for five innings because there’s always the chance he’s going to shut you out.”

Langston didn’t pitch a shutout, but he pitched well enough to win on his 31st birthday. A familiar refrain this season, but true.

“I thought I had good control and I was working ahead. I just had to make my pitches,” he said. “I wanted to keep the game close and give us a chance.”

Their chances were lessened by their failure to get Polonia in from second base with one out in the sixth inning or score Dave Parker from second in the seventh inning after a one-out double.

“If we get another hit with a man on second base or catch a ball we should have caught, it’s different,” Manager Doug Rader said, referring to Sojo’s error. “I really dislike that, losing a ballgame because we can’t catch a baseball.

“Tonight we just didn’t sustain any offense. We’d get a hit, a two-out hit in another inning, but we didn’t get enough consecutive hitting to get anything going.”