Moore Is Too Much for Angels : Baseball: Their record against Athletics drops to 1-11. He gives up three hits in 7 2/3 innings. Grahe’s effort is wasted.

Joe Grahe conquered the doubts that soured his outlook, but he couldn’t conquer the Oakland Athletics Wednesday night.

Grahe rebounded strongly from a 2 1/3-inning debacle at Seattle last Friday to limit the A’s to two runs at the Oakland Coliseum. On most nights that would have been enough to bring him and the Angels a victory, but this wasn’t the Angels’ night.

Grahe’s creditable performance was overshadowed by Mike Moore’s 7 2/3 shutout innings, which carried the A’s to a 2-0 victory.

Moore (12-7) gave up only three hits before yielding to Rick Honeycutt, who in turn gave way to Dennis Eckersley with one out in the ninth. Eckersley was touched for a single by Dave Winfield but recorded the final two outs to clinch his 36th save and Oakland’s 11th victory in 12 games against the Angels this season.

“In retrospect, after what happened in Seattle, this was a moral victory,” said Grahe (1-5), who entered the game with a 10.47 earned-run average in four starts but reduced that to 8.22.

“It was hard for me to regroup because it was the toughest loss I ever had as a professional,” Grahe said. “I had pitched well against Oakland (a 3-2 loss Aug. 11 at Anaheim Stadium), and I thought I was going good. Then wham, it came back and hit me in the face. . . . I figured if I was going down, I was going to fight and give it my best.”

It was easily his best outing of the season and one of the best from a motley collection by the Angels’ fifth starters. That group’s collective record fell to 1-14 with a 7.91 ERA, statistics in which Grahe was keenly aware.

“I’ll admit I’m pressing hard to get a win for the fifth slot,” Grahe said. “Obviously, the record is not too good for that particular position. In the last Seattle game, I put too much pressure on myself. Tonight, I took the attitude of ‘let the chips fall where they may.’ ”

Eleven hits fell in for the A’s, but Grahe wriggled out of several jams.

“He threw well enough to win most ballgames,” said Oakland left fielder Scott Brosius, who led off the first inning with a double and scored on Harold Baines’ grounder to second. “He made some good pitches in tough situations.”

He made some of those pitches in the second, when the A’s produced three hits but left runners at first and third after Grahe got Mike Bordick to ground into a force play. With the bases loaded in the fourth, Grahe struck out Bordick and got Brosius to line to right, keeping the Angels in the game.

“Joe pitched very well. He made good pitches when he had to,” Angel Manager Doug Rader said. “Pitching is one thing. Chris Beasley did a very fine job, too (in relief in the seventh.) But let’s not camouflage the issue, the runs we’re scoring--or not scoring. It’s very disappointing.

“There’s no way to tap dance around it. We just haven’t been able to sustain any form of offense when we’ve needed to. It’s beyond me. I can’t put my finger on it.”

They had runners on first and second with one out in the first, but Gary Gaetti struck out and Dave Parker grounded into a force play to end the threat. They didn’t get another hit until Luis Polonia’s infield single with one out in the sixth, and although Polonia got to third on a stolen base and a passed ball, he was stranded there when Joyner and Winfield struck out.

“We get some hits together and then we have trouble getting that one clutch hit that gets us going, gets everybody’s adrenaline going,” center fielder Shawn Abner said.

Abner blamed himself for misplaying Jamie Quirk’s sixth-inning fly ball into a double, which set up Bordick’s run-scoring triple. But the blame for Wednesday’s loss--the Angels’ third in a row and fifth in 10 games on their 11-game trip--belonged to every Angel who failed to drive in a runner from scoring position or took an undisciplined swing at Moore’s forkballs, helping Moore earn his fourth consecutive victory against the Angels this season.

The blame did not belong to Grahe. Not this time.

“My number one priority is if I get the chance to go out there five days from now, to have another good outing,” he said. “I’ve got to start putting things together. . . . If I take the ‘whatever happens, happens’ attitude, I think wins will start falling into place.”