Belle Rings Out No. 10 for Angels : Baseball: His grand slam in seventh inning sends their losing streak to within three of club record.

They’ve been shut out, blown out and tossed out, routed and edged, trounced and bounced.

But not until Wednesday had the Angels been slammed. Albert Belle and the Cleveland Indians grand slammed them in an 8-4 victory that added a twist to an old theme played for the 10th time in a row.

Belle hit reliever Joe Grahe’s first pitch into Cleveland Stadium’s left-field seats in the seventh inning for the second grand slam of his career, bringing the surprisingly loud crowd of 7,195 to its feet and bringing the Angels within three losses of their club record of 13 in a row. Unable to hold a 3-0 lead they built in the top of the first inning, the Angels lost for the 14th time in their last 16 games, in the process reaching new lows in confidence and new heights in ineptitude.

“We were playing good, and then comes that one inning,” said second baseman Luis Sojo, whose fifth-inning homer off Charles Nagy (11-4) gave the Angels a 4-3 lead. “All the time, it’s one inning. Every game now, we expect something bad is going to happen.”

Usually, it does. Several bad things happened Wednesday, undermining a decent effort by Mark Langston (8-7) that left Langston with a clenched jaw and frustrated expression as he boarded a team bus for Detroit.

“I have no comment,” he said.

Nagy understood completely. “He was throwing well and he pitched a great game. I feel bad for him,” said the Cleveland right-hander, who has won seven of his last eight decisions. “This was a tough ‘L’ to take.”

Even if Langston had shared his thoughts, he couldn’t have explained Junior Felix’s misjudging a third-inning fly to center by Thomas Howard, which became a two-base error and helped the Indians pull even, 3-3. Felix going into second standing up on a failed hit-and run in the fifth inning, after Sojo’s homer had put the Angels ahead, also was baffling, again proving Sojo’s theory that if something--such as a lead--appears too good to be true for the Angels, it is.

“John (Wathan) asked me why I didn’t slide and I say, ‘Because I was so stupid,’ ” said Felix, who added that Howard’s third-inning fly carried farther than he expected.

“No excuse,” Felix said.

No victory, either, not after the Indians got to a tiring Langston and worked over relievers Mark Eichhorn and Grahe.

Langston seemed on his way out of the seventh inning when he picked off pinch-runner Kenny Lofton, the AL’s stolen base leader, for his second pickoff of the game. Wilting under the oppressive humidity, Langston walked Sandy Alomar Jr., gave up an infield hit to Howard and threw a wild pitch to put runners on second and third. Wathan went to the bullpen for Eichhorn, who gave up a single to pinch-hitter Paul Sorrento for the tying run and walked Carlos Baerga on four pitches.

That brought up Belle, the talented but volatile outfielder who was benched by Cleveland Manager Mike Hargrove for not hustling for a line drive hit by Oakland’s Harold Baines last Sunday. Lofton’s injured elbow and Howard’s absence Tuesday for his grandmother’s funeral cut Belle’s banishment to only one game, but the Angels wished it had lasted at least three. Belle, as is his custom, ignored reporters after the game.

“He’s got all the ability in the world, if it can be channeled in the right direction,” said Wathan, who brought in Grahe because of Belle’s seven-for-11 record against Eichhorn. “He’s a tremendous athlete. I’m sure he’s the type of guy who drives the manager crazy. So I guess at times you’ve got to take the bad with the good and try to get him straightened out.”

Grahe, who has thrived as a closer during Bryan Harvey’s absence, decided to go straight at Belle.

“You have to let your fastball loose and let it do what it does. He just hit it,” said Grahe, who had stranded the four runners he had inherited before Wednesday. “I was trying to get it inside. You come into a situation where the bases are loaded, you want to throw a good, hard, low strike. I didn’t want to fall behind. He just beat me to the punch.”