Angels Fall Flat in Loss to Blue Jays

A team that showed promise in April and May is barely showing up in July.

In their latest flat performance, the Angels collected three hits Sunday in a 6-2 loss to the Blue Jays at the SkyDome, their seventh successive defeat and 11th in their last 13 games.

Toronto pitcher David Wells (4-3) was on the verge of losing his spot in the rotation after several rocky starts, but he allowed only two hits in his final six innings against the Angels. That left the Angels 2-15 against left-handers and unable to explain it--or to change it.

“It seems like anyone can beat us, left-handed or right-handed,” shortstop Gary DiSarcina said. “We’re just not doing the job.

“We’re not doing anything right. We’re missing signs, we’re not moving runners over, we’re hitting the first pitch. We’re not giving their pitchers a chance to make mistakes. We’re not in the right place at the right time on defense half the time, and we’re not doing anything that’s good.”

For a definition of good, he pointed to the Blue Jays. Home runs by Joe Carter, Candy Maldonado and former Angel Devon White off Julio Valera (4-8), coupled with decent work by Wells and reliever Mike Timlin were all Toronto needed for its fourth consecutive victory and a three-game lead over the Orioles atop the AL East. The Blue Jays’ 49-31 record is their best after 80 games.

Carter, whose two-run homer hit the left-field scoreboard and brought roars from the crowd of 50,398, sympathized with the Angels’ struggles.

“Any time you’re not scoring runs, you’re going to look flat,” he said. “(Saturday), when they were up 6-1 and came back, that had to hurt them. I’ve been on both sides. In Cleveland, it was like that. You just come to the ballpark everyday hoping something different will happen.

“We’re playing well. We’re getting good pitching and hitting about as well as we can. If we continue doing that, it will be tough for the Angels or anybody else to beat us.”

The Angels couldn’t do it Sunday. They scored a run in the first on a single by Luis Polonia, a walk, a groundout and Gary Gaetti’s sacrifice fly, but fell behind in the bottom of the inning on Carter’s 18th homer of the season. In the second, the Blue Jays increased their lead to 4-1, when Junior Felix couldn’t hold onto Alfredo Griffin’s arcing fly to center and catcher Mike Fitzgerald made an errant throw to third.

Maldonado made it 5-1 in the fourth with a shot to left, and although Chad Curtis hit the Angels’ first homer in 69 1/3 innings when he hit a 2-and-1 pitch off the facing of the second deck in left in the sixth, White’s homer to right kept the Blue Jays’ four-run lead intact.

“We played Minnesota and Toronto in the last week, the two top teams (in their respective divisions), and it’s like night and day compared to us. It’s like two teams at the opposite end of the spectrum,” DiSarcina said. “I’ve learned more the last seven days against those two teams than in the last three years. They don’t hurt themselves and they do the little things right. From one through nine, their lineup is solid. Like Dave Winfield trying to bunt (in the seventh inning Saturday). They were up a run and he tried to move the runner over. I’m sure he didn’t have the bunt sign.

“We’re playing the opposite way Buck (Rodgers) wants us to play. He always said, ‘If you make a mistake, make an aggressive mistake.’ Now we’re between aggressive and safe and you can’t play safe, especially where we are now and against these teams. We’ve got nothing to lose. Instead of station to station, make the other team screw up. Try to bunt. I know as an infielder, when the hitter bunts, there are a lot of ways infielders can screw up. We’re not bunting for hits. People have gotten away from that.”

After watching leads slip away in three consecutive games, interim manager John Wathan could do little but shake his head in frustration.

“It’s not good right now, that’s for sure,” Wathan said. “You hope to finish strong before the (All-Star) break and start the second half as fresh as you can. You can’t undo what’s been done. You just keep hoping every day you’ll get a win and get something started. We’re not playing well and there’s no way to disguise it.”

Not only can’t they hide it, they can’t do much to change it. Other than a trade, their only option is to recall triple-A outfielder Tim Salmon, who leads the Pacific Coast League in most major offensive categories. That’s been discussed more seriously in recent days. “We need to see eventually what he can do up here,” Wathan said.

He can’t do much worse than what they’ve got. As a team, the Angels are batting .169 (42 for 248) in their last eight games and have a league-low .241 team average.

Said Wathan: “(It’s an) uphill battle the rest of the way. We have to try to get back into some sort of contention. We’ve got to salvage a dismal first half of the season somehow in the second half by being competitive and winning some ballgames.”