Robinson Sharp in Angel Debut : Baseball: Pitcher acquired as a free agent shuts out Brewers for 6 1/3 innings of a 4-1 victory, the team’s first of the season.

Victorious in his American League debut, Don Robinson must have wondered why he wasted so much time in that other league.

Robinson shut out the Milwaukee Brewers for 6 1/3 innings Saturday night, the foundation for a 4-1 victory that was the Angels’ first in five games this season.

Surely, Robinson, who was signed as a free agent last winter, has to be a big AL booster after an easy, five-hit, three-strikeout performance that sent most of the Anaheim Stadium crowd of 22,679 home happy?

“Nah,” he said, smiling. “I still like the National League. I’d get a chance to hit.”

He gave the Brewers precious few hits, relying heavily on his fastball in the early going and mixing in his other pitches as he found his rhythm. Still feeling strong in the seventh, he yielded to Chuck Crim only because a muscle cramp in his right forearm made his fingers curl and distorted his delivery.

Crim allowed a leadoff home run to Franklin Stubbs and a double to Kevin Seitzer in the ninth before Bryan Harvey came in to record three quick outs and earn his first save.

“It’s always tough to get that first win,” said Robinson, whose last victory came while he was with the San Francisco Giants, last July 15 at New York. “We haven’t been playing well, and I knew when I went out there our bullpen was kind of down. My main thought was at least to get to the seventh inning.

“For me, the first inning has always been my worst inning, and to get through that without a run was a big help. I was excited. It was my first AL start, my first start in California, so I had a little adrenaline in the first inning.”

He also had a little bit of a jam to work out of, after second baseman Bobby Rose threw away Darryl Hamilton’s slow roller. The play was ruled a hit and an error and put Hamilton on second with one out. Robinson escaped, thanks to a fine running catch by Junior Felix and a strikeout by Greg Vaughn.

“I’m at a little advantage right now because nobody in this league has seen me,” he said. “(Brewer Manager Phil) Garner has seen me and can tell them about me, but they haven’t seen me, and I think that works to my advantage.”

It worked well enough for the Angels to avoid their first 0-5 start.

“You know you have to win a game sooner or later, but it does feel good to get one,” said Von Hayes, who had two doubles, including a two-run double to the right-field corner in the four-run fifth, the Angels’ most productive inning this season.

“It was equally important to win yesterday and the day before. It was a matter of coming out and playing a little better baseball,” Hayes said. “We still made some mistakes, but one nice thing about this team, compared with teams I’ve been on in the past that got off to slow starts, is that on other teams the panic button went off really early because of the quality of the pitching staff. Here, with the pitching staff we have, we know we have a chance of putting things together and putting together a nice winning streak.

“I don’t think there’s a team in the league that’s not going to lose four, five in a row at some point but hopefully, here on out we’ll be able to settle down and work with our pitching staff and play good baseball.”

They played smart baseball in scoring all their runs in the fifth off Bill Wegman (0-1). Rose singled past Wegman and took second on Mike Fitzgerald’s first hit as an Angel, a single to left. Gary DiSarcina, after fouling a ball that bounced and hit him in the face, recovered in time to single to left, scoring Rose. Polonia moved Fitzgerald to third and DiSarcina to second with a sacrifice Wegman had to field, and Fitzgerald scored when Felix beat out a grounder to second baseman Jim Gantner.

“Junior Felix made that whole inning by beating out that ball,” Manager Buck Rodgers said. “If he doesn’t, we’re out. We’re done. He gave us a chance to score three more.”

The Brewers thought they would score off Robinson, 5-9 last season, but were surprised at his success. “We obviously struggled offensively with the bats tonight,” Garner said. “I thought we would take it to Robinson tonight. Though he pitched a good game, we missed some key opportunities to make things happen.”