Angels’ Streak Ended by Mariners’ Fleming : Baseball: Rookie improves to 12-4 with 8-1 victory. Langston gives up 12 hits in 5 2/3 innings.

Mark Langston knows the joy and the difficulty of what Dave Fleming is accomplishing for the Seattle Mariners this season.

Eight years ago, pitching for a weak Mariner team, Langston won 17 games and nearly won rookie of the year honors, too. On Tuesday night, Fleming held the Angels to eight singles over eight innings in Seattle’s 8-1 victory at Anaheim Stadium, improving his record to 12-4 and moving within five victories of the Mariner rookie record Langston set in 1984.

“He’s got a real good shot at breaking that,” said Langston, who gave up 12 hits to his former teammates over 5 2/3 innings, dropping his record to 9-9.

“He’s having a great year. He’s shown he knows how to pitch,” Langston added about his fellow left-hander. “He’s not an overpowering guy, but he knows how to pitch and that’s impressive in a young guy. I would just grab it and go with it and let the chips fall where they may. He’s got a better head on his shoulders probably than I did at that stage.”

Fleming’s fastball tops in the mid-to-upper 80s, and his control was impeccable Tuesday. After giving up a run in the first inning, he didn’t permit another baserunner past first. He struck out two and didn’t issue a walk, reducing his earned-run average to 3.09.

Having an 18-hit attack behind him certainly helped the 22-year-old New Yorker, but he demonstrated poise before those hits appeared, stopping the Angels before the game could get out of hand and ending their winning streak at four.

A single by Luis Polonia and Luis Sojo’s bunt single up the third-base line put runners on first and second in the first inning, and Junior Felix’s fielder’s choice grounder moved Polonia to third. Gary Gaetti’s single scored Polonia and put Felix on second, but Fleming got out of the inning by getting Chad Curtis to fly to center and Rene Gonzales to ground to second.

“I wasn’t going to panic in the first inning,” said Fleming, who leads all rookie pitchers in victories. “I made a bad pitch to Polonia and there wasn’t much I could do. . . . I just didn’t want to put us in a hole, especially facing a guy like Langston.”

If comparisons with Langston are inevitable because they are both left-handed and both rose above weak teams--Fleming has 30% of the Mariners’ 40 victories--Fleming would prefer to avoid them.

“I’d really rather not have my name mentioned with Mark Langston’s because he’s pitched in the big leagues a long time,” said Fleming, a third-round pick by Seattle in the 1990 draft. “It’s nice and definitely a compliment.”

But he isn’t concerned with Langston’s record. “I’m just going after number 13,” said Fleming, who has yielded three earned runs or fewer in each of his last six starts. “I don’t look down the road.”

Langston looked uncomfortable all night, struggling through a four-run third inning that featured an RBI double by Kevin Mitchell and RBI singles by former Angel Lance Parrish and catcher Dave Valle. Henry Cotto had three singles and two steals and scored three runs, and Ken Griffey Jr. drove in two runs in the sixth with a single off Mike Butcher as the Mariners won for only the third time in their last 11 games.

“I was pitching totally backward tonight,” Langston said. “I have to be aggressive. . . . I pitched stupid.”

“We were never really in it once they scored those four runs,” interim Manager John Wathan said of the Angels’ 19th loss in 24 games against left-handed starters. “(Langston) didn’t have his best stuff and they whacked it.”