Hathaway Hangs Tough on the Hill : Baseball: He has taken plenty of criticism, but after Angels’ 5-4 victory over Royals, he is 3-1.

Go ahead and make fun of his name. Everyone else does. Feel free to take a few unkind cuts at his arm, too. Reggie Jackson and the Minnesota Twins did.

Rookie left-hander Hilly Hathaway laughed it off Thursday at Anaheim Stadium. It’s nothing new, and he used his usual response to the hecklers and critics after the Angels defeated the Kansas City Royals, 5-4, before 23,585.

“I must be doing something right,” he said after his second consecutive victory and after learning of Jackson’s comments in last week’s Sports Illustrated.

“He’s got nothing,” Jackson was quoted as saying. “Anybody can do what he does. He don’t throw hard, he don’t have a good breaking ball. You can get to him anytime.”

The Twins, 4-2 losers to Hathaway last Friday, offered similar assessments.

Hathaway smiled and shrugged it off.

“That’s (Jackson’s) opinion,” he said, smiling. “I have a good curveball. It’s just a matter of getting it over the plate.”

The Angels won’t quibble with the results. It was Hathaway’s third victory since his callup from triple-A Vancouver on June 16. That is as many as any current Angel not named Chuck Finley or Mark Langston.

Hathaway, 3-1 with a 4.57 earned-run average, needed help from Chili Davis and Steve Frey Thursday, and he earned praise from Manager Buck Rodgers for his perseverance.

Hathaway didn’t fool many Kansas City batters in a rocky first inning but settled into a steady groove thereafter. He gave up one run and seven hits, with five walks and two strikeouts, in 6 1/3 innings.

It was hardly Hall of Fame material, but what has been for the Angels this season?

“He survived the first inning,” Rodgers said. “That was the biggest thing. I thought he pitched an awfully good baseball game after the first inning.”

Davis took care of the Angel offense with a three-run homer off Kansas City starter Tom Gordon (6-3) in the third inning and added a run-scoring double in the seventh. Frey mopped up a potentially troublesome mess in the eighth and pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to pick up his team-leading 11th save.

Davis continued his torrid hitting with runners on third base and fewer than two out. In that situation, he is batting .500 (14 for 28) with 17 runs batted in. His home run, a 393-foot blast into the right-field bleachers, was his 16th this season.

“Chili was our whole offense today,” Rodgers said. “I think Chili’s adrenaline glands get pumping when he’s up there with men on base. He licks his chops. He’s having an outstandingyear.”

Davis is 11 RBIs shy of his personal best of 93, set in 1988 with the Angels and tied in 1991 as a Twin.

But the Angel bullpen almost let a victory slip away.

Reliever Mike Butcher got the Angels out of a bases-loaded jam in the seventh, preserving a 4-1 lead. But in the eighth, after Davis’ RBI double had given the Angels a 5-1 lead, Butcher gave up a three-run homer to Greg Gagne.

After a walk to pinch-hitter Chris Gwynn, Rodgers replaced Butcher with Frey, who got George Brett and Mike Macfarlane to pop out to end the inning.

“The bullpen gave us the game, that’s the bottom line,” Frey said. “I came in and said, ‘I can’t let this game get away from us.’ We were up, 5-1. We couldn’t lose it.”

The Angels might not have had the lead at all if not for Hathaway’s ability to recover from his difficult start. Three walks and an infield single in the first inning produced the Royals’ first run.

“Early on, I was a little wild,” Hathaway said. “My curveball wasn’t there, but my changeup was there to keep them off balance. I was able to get a few ground balls when I needed them. Today was a battle.”

The key to his turnaround was Davis’ three-run homer, Hathaway said.

“They got me the runs, that’s what counts,” Hathaway said. “Ask any pitcher. (A three-run homer) will settle them down a lot. When you get a lead, you’re not trying to pitch to that exact location or be too fine.”