White Sox Put 10-4 Pin Into Angels’ Gala : Baseball: Langston doesn’t make it through the fourth inning, and defense is sloppy as season-opener hex continues.

The band played merrily, balloons soared into the early evening sky and the bunting that decorated Anaheim Stadium flapped gently in the breeze, creating a festive atmosphere as 32,160 settled into their seats for the Angels’ home opener.

Two innings into the season, the fans were booing, the bunting was forlorn and the Angels’ hopes of starting with a victory were a punctured balloon.

Despite the lift of a two-run home run by Von Hayes against Jack McDowell on the first pitch he saw as an Angel and Bobby Rose’s two-run homer in the fourth, Manager Buck Rodgers’ team fell flat Tuesday in a 10-4 loss to the Chicago White Sox.

“It was kind of like going up a roller coaster,” said shortstop Gary DiSarcina, who threw away the first ball hit to him and furthered Chicago’s four-run surge in the fourth inning. “Spring training was finally over, we had the whole day of drama building. We came down the hill after Von hit that homer, and we fell off track.”

They fell off quickly and emphatically in suffering their sixth loss in their last eight season openers.

Their pitchers, who figure to be the foundation for any success the Angels realize this season, were charged with nine earned runs, 14 hits, seven walks, one balk and one hit batter. When White Sox hitters learned to lay off Langston’s good changeup and wait for his flat fastball, they raked him for three runs in the second, one in the third and four consecutive hits in the fourth before he was relieved by Chuck Crim.

“My fastball really was straight tonight. For some reason, it wasn’t moving as well as it had been,” said Langston, who lost his three previous opening-day starts, all with Seattle.

“I felt very good warming up and I still felt good in the fourth inning. I didn’t feel like I had terrible stuff, but I did make some stupid pitches in situations that I kicked myself for making.”

The Angels’ defense only made matters worse. DiSarcina, who didn’t get a chance to handle the ball in the early innings and feared he would muff it when his chance finally came, saw his prophecy come true when he bounced a throw to first baseman Lee Stevens on a potential inning-ending grounder by Ron Karkovice. Given another chance, the White Sox added a run, pulling away to an 8-2 lead. “After it happened I said, ‘Nice fielding percentage,’ ” DiSarcina said.

And Hayes, who ended a streak of 336 homer-less at-bats with a blast into the right-field seats in the second inning, misplayed a double by Tim Raines in the bottom of the inning as the White Sox took the lead for good. As he caught up with Raines’ sinking liner, Hayes stumbled, allowing Raines to take third as Karkovice and Ozzie Guillen scored.

“I just blew that play,” Hayes said. “There was a little bit too much excitement out there. I was trying to hold the fastest man in the world to a double. I tried to cut it off, spin and throw to second and I didn’t pull it off. That’s a bad play. Those are plays you think about before they happen.

“I don’t know what I was thinking about.”

The evening provided much for Rodgers to think about. Although he emphasizes “little ball,” scoring runs through aggressive baserunning and using the hit and run, his team’s production resulted from a pair of two-run home runs. Meanwhile, the power-laden White Sox manufactured runs with speed and flair, as in the fifth when Raines walked, stole second and scored on a pair of grounders to the right side.

Rose, installed as the starting second baseman this season, hit his fourth major league homer in the fourth to cut the Angels’ deficit to 8-4, but the White Sox quickly quashed the Angels’ faint comeback hopes with a run in the fifth against Crim and another in the eighth against Scott Lewis. The crowd, the smallest for an Anaheim Stadium opener since 1984, vented its displeasure with cries of “Wally” after Stevens failed to scoop up DiSarcina’s errant throw and booed Langston when he exited.

“Basically, Mark didn’t have his good stuff, his good fastball, and in the fourth inning we gave them an extra run or two,” Rodgers said. “That got them way out of the gate. I thought if we could hold them to six, we could come back. . . . There were a lot of (bad) plays. There were opening-night jitters, plus our starter, who was throwing good all spring, didn’t have a good night.”

Few Angels could say opening night was a good night. “That’s not going to be typical of this team,” said Hayes, whose first homer since Sept. 8, 1990 made him the ninth player to homer in his first Angel at-bat. “Once everybody settles in, we’re going to be much better defensively.”

Said Rose: “It’s not a good feeling. You get your first shot and you want that first victory right away. It’s important for this team just to get that first one out of the way, start getting the flow.”

* ROSS NEWHAN: With recent financial revelations, the Angels needed to get off to a good start. C4

* INJURIES: Players are dropping like fly balls. Nolan Ryan went on the disabled list, Len Dykstra and Chris Sabo were injured and three Cardinal starters are already out. C5