Blyleven Cold After Reception : Baseball: He walks three Twins during the third inning and the Angels lose for eighth time in nine road games.

Only through sheer will did Bert Blyleven control his emotions Tuesday, when a crowd of 31,494 welcomed him back to the Metrodome to face the team whose uniform he wore for 149 of his 282 career victories.

His control of his pitches, however, wasn’t as masterful. Unable to get his fastball on the inside part of the plate, Blyleven walked three, one of them intentionally, during the third inning and gave up all five Minnesota runs in the Twins’ 5-3 victory over the Angels.

“My adrenaline was flowing and I guess I tried to be a little too fine,” Blyleven (3-1) said after his first defeat since his comeback from shoulder surgery and first since a loss to the Twins at the Metrodome on July 30, 1990.

“The ovation the fans gave me was really nice, and I have a lot of good memories here,” said Blyleven, who spent 11 seasons with the Twins and was a member of their 1987 World Series champion team.

“You come back and you want to show your former teammates you’re throwing the ball good, and I just tried to be too fine. My fastball, especially inside, wasn’t as sharp as I wanted it. The first couple of innings I was looking for a spot instead of just throwing it up there. I was trying to be too perfect.”

The result was an imperfect ending for Blyleven, who hadn’t walked more than two in any of his five previous starts and started the game with a 1.67 earned-run average. When he left after 5 1/3 innings, his ERA was up to 2.63 and the Angels trailed, 5-2. They got one more run against Scott Erickson (5-5) on a double by Luis Sojo, a ground out and a single by Luis Polonia, but Gary Wayne, Carl Willis and Rick Aguilera preserved the Twins’ sixth victory in seven games.

“Bert has been awful good control-wise, and he just got away from it a little bit in the third inning,” interim Manager John Wathan said. “He just wasn’t quite as sharp with his control as he has been.”

Alvin Davis’ first-inning sacrifice fly scored Polonia for a 1-0 Angel lead, but the Twins countered during the second inning on Kent Hrbek’s leadoff homer to right. Singles by Gary DiSarcina and Chad Curtis and Junior Felix’s sacrifice fly to center gave the Angels a 2-1 lead, but Blyleven ran aground during the third.

After walking Lenny Webster and getting Greg Gagne to fly to right, he walked Shane Mack on a full-count pitch. Chuck Knoblauch rapped a single to left to drive in Webster with the tying run and move Mack to second.

“The 3-2 changeup to Webster in that situation is a bad pitch,” Blyleven said. “That created the four-run inning. I’ve got to make him swing the bat right there. I’m a better pitcher than that. It was a bad pitch on my part. Those are the guys you have to keep off base, because Knoblauch, Hrbek and (Kirby) Puckett are RBI guys.”

Puckett didn’t get an RBI on his single against Blyleven because Chad Curtis’ one-bounce throw from right field got Mack at the plate. With Puckett on second and Knoblauch on third, the Angels walked Hrbek--who was 14-for-41 against Blyleven with five career homers--to pitch to right-handed hitting Pedro Munoz. He confounded that by lining a ground-rule double into the right-field corner, scoring Knoblauch and Puckett.

Hrbek, who went to third on Munoz’s double, trotted home when third base umpire Ken Kaiser called a balk as Blyleven prepared to face Randy Bush. Blyleven said he waggled his right hand to get catcher Ron Tingley to repeat the signs, but Wathan said the umpires told him Blyleven had started his motion with both hands.

“Herbie called it, then Kaiser said something and looked at the home plate umpire (Vic Voltaggio),” Blyleven said. “Kaiser said, ‘Kent, if you want a balk, you get a balk.’ . . . Kenny has been known to call a lot of balks. Maybe he got tired of looking at Herbie at third.”

Hrbek called Blyleven’s return a welcome sight. “It feels good to see him come back, but he’s just another pitcher when you go out and face him,” said Hrbek, whose homer was the 418th against Blyleven. “It’s like facing anybody else: you want to bash him.”

Said Twin Manager Tom Kelly: “He’s awful competitive. He hasn’t lost that. Nobody in the world is hoping more that he wins his 300. He was 3-0 and I can see why.”

The offensive spark that helped the Angels to a 7-2 home stand was missing in the first two games here. They have lost eight of their last nine road games and 17 of 20.

“We swung the bats very well at home and averaged five runs a game,” Wathan said. “I hope it’s a coincidence (that they have scored three runs in two games). If it’s a prolonged slump, possibly there’s something to it.”