Eight Is More Than Enough for Abbott : Baseball: Angels give pitcher a rare bounty of support against Smiley and Twins.

One run, two runs, three runs, four. Were these really the Angels stringing together hits and scoring on behalf of Jim Abbott?

“It’s great,” said Abbott, who got more support in one inning--four runs in the second--than he had in all but four games this season and defeated the Minnesota Twins, 8-0, Friday night. “I don’t want to say strange, but I will say it was great.”

Abbott (7-13), who struck out a season-high 10 in 8 1/3 innings, has been baseball’s hard-luck pitcher this year, rarely winning despite a 2.71 earned-run average that ranks among the American League’s best.

The Angels averaged only 2.4 runs in his first 25 starts. Only four times all season had the Angels scored four runs in an entire game for Abbott before they got that many in Friday’s second inning against John Smiley (14-8).

“Against a guy like Smiley, you didn’t know what was going to happen,” said Abbott, who gave up eight hits and a walk. “The Twins have played so well against us, we came in here with a little bit of an inferiority complex.”

The Angels had been outscored, 27-5, and had batted .169 in losing their first six games against the Twins this season. Minnesota entered with an 0.83 ERA against the Angels.

Smiley gave up nine hits and five runs in six innings and has a 9.00 ERA in September after four solid months.

“He didn’t have too much,” Minnesota Manager Tom Kelly said. “And we didn’t do anything. We stunk. They outhit us, they outpitched us, they out-everythinged us.”

Smiley began the second by walking Damion Easley, who went to third on Gary DiSarcina’s single and scored on Mike Fitzgerald’s single. The runners advanced on John Orton’s sacrifice before Luis Polonia singled home one run and Luis Sojo singled home two more.

Minnesota loaded the bases in the eighth and ninth innings but couldn’t score. Abbott got out of the eighth by striking out Gene Larkin and making a nice play on Scott Leius’ high chopper. Scott Lewis relieved in the ninth and got two fly outs.

“I plead guilty, I wanted him to get a shutout,” Angel Manager Buck Rodgers said of Abbott, who threw 142 pitches. “But at the end, it was obvious that he was out of gas, so I wasn’t going to jeopardize him or the win.”