Angels Are Back in First : Baseball: Team moves into tie with White Sox after Sanderson pitches five-hitter to beat Mariners, 5-0.

It’s a crapshoot every time Angel Manager Buck Rodgers summons a reliever from his bullpen, he constantly is juggling his catching and he still has no reliable source of power in his lineup.

Yet when Rodgers gets up today, grabs his cup of coffee and reads the morning newspaper, it will be there staring at him in black and white.

The Angels, 5-0 winners Thursday night over the Seattle Mariners, will be sitting atop the American League West division, tied with the Chicago White Sox.

“I had a guy send me a letter this spring,” Rodgers said, “and told me that he put money on us in Las Vegas to win this thing.

“I was hoping the guy didn’t blow all his money, but the way we’re going now, hey, he might be on to something.

“I can’t say that we’re going to win the pennant, but you can say we can play with anybody in this league.”

Defying all logic, much less enormous odds, the Angels (24-20) now find themselves believing that this could be one of those wondrous summers that kids only dream about.

“Right now,” said Angel third baseman Rene Gonzales, “we’re shocking the house.

“How can you not believe we can continue this? You’d have to be an idiot to say we couldn’t.”

The Angels opened this grueling 11-day, 10-game trip 2 1/2 games in back of the White Sox, praying they would still be in division race by the time they returned to Anaheim.

Who’d ever have imagined that the Angels could go 5-5 on the trip, blowing three late-inning games--including a 14-inning defeat--and wind up in first place?

“This might be like a dot race before the year’s over,” Rodgers said, “with everybody going back and forth.

“Sure, we’ve got our problems, but the way it looks, everybody’s got their problems. We’ve got a whole division feelings its way around right now.”

While others are still scrambling to fine-tune their team, the Angels surprisingly have become the envy of their peers for one vital reason: their starting rotation.

The Angel rotation ever so quietly has been as dominant as any in baseball the first seven weeks of the season. They’ve yielded a dazzling 2.49 ERA the last 15 games, and only four times this season has a starter failed to pitch at least five innings. Their entire pitching staff now owns a 3.41 ERA--the second-lowest in the American League behind the Boston Red Sox.

And, of course, there is no bigger surprise than Scott Douglas Sanderson, the 36-year-old veteran who was shunned by everyone in baseball but the Angels.

The Angels’ free-agent signing aroused so little interest that Angel Vice President Whitey Herzog was unaware Sanderson was even on the team until a reporter notified him at the start of spring training.

Now, after Sanderson’s latest performance--a five-hit shutout over the Mariners at the Kingome--everyone wants to take credit. Sanderson, 7-2 with a 2.82 ERA, is tied with Jack McDowell of the White Sox for the American League lead in victories.

Just how vital has Sanderson been to the Angels’ success this season? The Angels are 8-2 in games he has started; 11-18 in games started by Mark Langston, Chuck Finley and John Farrell.

“How could anyone expect this?” Rodgers said. “He’s a 36-year-old pitching like he’s 19 or 20.”

Sanderson was so overwhelming that he didn’t allow a baserunner to reach second until Mackey Sasser’s two-out single in the ninth, retiring 11 consecutive batters without allowing a ball out of the infield until the ninth.