Angels Frustrate Abbott Again, 2-1 : Baseball: He lowers ERA to 2.68 but record falls to 7-14 with loss against Twins.

The Minnesota Twins kept alive their faint hopes of repeating as AL West champions Thursday night at the expense of Jim Abbott.

Rookie Bernardo Brito recorded the first run batted in of his major league career with a fifth-inning sacrifice fly, the decisive run in the Twins’ 2-1 victory over the Angels before 21,566 at Anaheim Stadium.

The Twins ended a three-game losing streak and cut their deficit to 8 1/2 games behind the Oakland Athletics, who were idle Thursday. The Twins have 15 games remaining, Oakland 16.

Abbott (7-14) reduced his earned-run average to 2.68, fifth-best in the AL, and pitched his sixth complete game of the season. However, five of those have been in defeats.

Entering Thursday’s game, the Angels were averaging 2.6 runs in Abbott’s 28 starts, having scored 67 runs--56 when he was in the game.

Abbott has given up three earned runs or fewer in 21 starts, but the Angels have not scored many runs for him. That was the case again Thursday against rookie Mike Trombley (2-1), who gave up three hits over seven innings and only an unearned run.

“We were lucky (Wednesday) and got away with one,” Angel Manager Buck Rodgers said, referring to a 2-1 victory at Seattle. “Today, we didn’t get a bad bounce. It’s tough to win a ballgame when you only get three hits.”

Said Abbott: “I’ve learned to worry about the process instead of the product. Maybe this has driven me to be a little too philosophical.”

The game began ominously for Abbott, who is usually strong in the early innings. Before Thursday’s game, he had given up only 13 earned runs in the first three innings this season, but that total increased to 14 after three pitches to Chuck Knoblauch.

The AL’s 1991 rookie of the year had a 1-and-1 count when he hit his second home run of the season, a line drive into the left-field seats.

When the next hitter, Greg Gagne, singled to right, it looked as if it might be a long evening for Abbott. But he escaped the inning when Shane Mack lined to third and Damion Easley threw to first to double off Gagne.

The Angels did not get a hit until two out in the fourth, but that hit produced the tying run. Polonia reached on a throwing error by Gagne, was sacrifice to second by Luis Sojo and scored on Lee Stevens’ single.

Minnesota pushed across the go-ahead run in the fifth on singles by Pedro Munoz and Brian Harper and a sacrifice fly by Brito.

“To get a couple of runs against Abbott is a monumental event,” Minnesota Manager Tom Kelly said. “We should have some kind of champagne toast.”

Rick Aguilera shut down the Angels in the ninth for his 38th save.

“Jim Abbott didn’t have his good stuff early on. It looked like he was going to get shelled,” Rodgers said. “He made up pitches as he went along and threw a lot of changeups tonight. He pitched well--emphasis on pitched.”

“I will say this about those guys (the Twins),” Abbott said. “I never feel comfortable out there against them. They’re a tough team and they do the little things right.”