Angels Get One for Their Buck : Baseball: Langston and Grahe stop Red Sox on four hits, 7-2.

It was nothing but a late-August victory for a fifth-place team, but Buck Rodgers took the ball in his hand Saturday night and gripped it fondly.

“That’s the game ball,” he said after Mark Langston and Joe Grahe combined on a four-hitter as the Angels beat Boston, 7-2, in front of 24,717 at Anaheim Stadium. “It took me 100 games to get that sucker.”

It was Rodgers’ second day back on the job, but his first victory since missing 89 games because of injuries suffered in the team’s May 21 bus crash. He missed 100 days, and hadn’t managed a victory since May 17, when the Angels beat Boston in Fenway Park.

Coincidentally, the same two pitchers who started that game, Langston and John Dopson, took the mound Saturday.

“If was like opening day for me,” Rodgers said.

Back in May, the Angels were looking forward to the heart of the season. Now Rodgers is intent on evaluating the team’s young talent in what is left of this season.

Lee Stevens, whose .224 average has been an ongoing disappointment, gave Rodgers cause to take notice Saturday with two doubles and a season-high three runs batted in.

“We’ve been looking for the big guy to do that--we’ve been looking all year,” Rodgers said.

The past two weeks have been perhaps Stevens’ best of the season.

“It’s better late than never,” Stevens said. “This is good timing, I guess.”

It isn’t lost on him that the Angels face decisions on which 15 players to protect from the expansion draft.

“I think that’s in the back of everybody’s mind, even the established players,” Stevens said. “You know they have to decide who to protect, and you want to protect yourself. You want to make it a tough decision for them.”

Another player trying to make an impression is John Orton, who returned to the team Saturday after being hampered by a shoulder injury most of the season. He was charged with an error when he dropped a foul pop, but he redeemed himself offensively, going two for three with a walk, two runs scored and the first stolen base of his major league career.

The Angels won by taking advantage of shaky Boston defense, and by being aggressive on the basepaths, something that has been part of the game plan all along.

“This club has got to play that kind of baseball,” Rodgers said. “We can’t sit back and wait on the three-run home run.”

Langston (12-11) faltered slightly in the fifth, walking Bob Zupcic before giving up a two-run home run to Eric Wedge. Langston went seven innings, giving up four hits before Grahe took over and retired the final six batters.

The Red Sox, who made two errors while winning the first game of the series, made three more.

First baseman Mo Vaughn’s missed catch on a pickoff attempt in the second inning contributed to the Angels’ first run, when Chad Curtis went to third while Vaughn tracked down the ball.

As Luis Polonia missed on a bunt attempt in the third inning, catcher John Marzano tried to pick Orton off first. But Marzano’s throw deflected off the helmet of Polonia, who was moving down the first base line after trying to bunt. Orton made it to third, then scored on Polonia’s single.

Polonia’s two steals gave him 45 this season. His second, in the fourth inning, helped the Angels take a 5-0 lead when Marzano’s throw to second went into the outfield, allowing Orton to score from third.