BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : ANGELS : Sanderson’s Day Is Ruined in the First

Angel starter Scott Sanderson says he pitched as well as he has all season Saturday in his first complete game in a year, but he was left with a memory of a 4-2 defeat to the Texas Rangers.

Sanderson yielded only seven hits and one walk in his first complete game since June 30, 1992, but a three-run homer by Rafael Palmeiro during the first inning spoiled the day.

“I thought I really threw the ball well,” said Sanderson, who has a 6-2 record with a 3.23 earned-run average, “but the fact is that I lost and gave up four runs. You can never feel good about a loss, and obviously it was the homer that really hurt.”

The home run was preceded by a wind-blown double by Julio Franco and an infield single by Juan Gonzalez, and Palmeiro drove the first pitch into the right-field seats.

“I felt like this might be one of those wild, 10-13 games,” Angel Manager Buck Rodgers said, “with the way the wind was blowing. But what can you say, that kid (Roger Pavlik) had us eating out of his hands.”

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It has been 32 years since Rodgers played in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area in his first year in the Angel organization, and they are memories he would love to forget.

“It truly was a Dallas-Ft. Worth team,” Rodgers said. “We played Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Ft. Worth and Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Dallas.

“Then, on Sunday, that’s when things were really screwed up. We played split-doubleheaders. We played at 1 o’clock in Ft. Worth and at 8 o’clock in Dallas.

“And people talk about schedules being bad today.”