Langston Rewinds to Find His Game : Baseball: Ancient Mariner videos show pitcher how he used to win. They come in handy against the Twins.

When Mark Langston went looking for answers the other day he found them in the bottom of a closet at home. Videotapes. Dozens of them.

“I opened my closet and there they were,” he said. “I just decided to pull them out and look at them.”

He popped a cassette into the VCR and hit the play button. He watched himself intently, noticing he looked decidedly younger, wearing a short haircut and a Seattle Mariner uniform.

“I looked like a kid,” Langston said.

But casual appearances weren’t really what Langston was after in an determined effort to snap out of the funk that caused him to lose four consecutive starts going into Wednesday’s game against the Minnesota Twins.

Something was off kilter. It would have been easy to pin the blame on the arthroscopic surgery he needed to remove bone chips in his left elbow. But Langston thought there was more to it. He believed he simply wasn’t as aggressive as before he underwent surgery April 12.

The tapes proved Langston right and, armed with that knowledge, he went right after the Twins.

It worked, too. He gave up four hits and two runs with two walks and a season-high seven strikeouts in seven innings, winning for the first time since May 11.

He started the game having allowed 19 earned runs and 31 hits, including seven home runs, in his previous 19 2/3 innings. His last start ended when elbow stiffness forced him from the game after giving up four hits and four runs in four innings.

Wednesday, he looked like a different pitcher and the reviews were rave.

“He supposedly has a sore arm,” Minnesota second baseman Chuck Knoblauch said. “I’d like to see him 100% healthy. Early on, it seemed like he had the stuff to throw a no-hitter.”

Said right fielder Kirby Puckett: “He was throwing the slider down and in to right-handed hitters like he used to. He must have known he had a good slider when he was warming up in the bullpen.”

Said Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann: “We needed it.”

It had been four years since Langston last looked that long and hard at his tapes, so you know there was a sense of urgency to his viewing.

The last time he struggled so much with his mechanics was in 1990, when he had a 10-17 record a 4.40 earned-run average in his first season as an Angel. Only once, in 1985, has he finished a year with fewer victories or a higher ERA.

“Nineteen-ninety was definitely no fun at all,” said Langston, 3-4 with a 5.49 ERA this season. “I really struggled that year. I was off quite a bit in my mechanics.

“(Before Wednesday) I wanted to make some adjustments. I saw I wasn’t aggressive in the strike zone.”

Langston stayed ahead of the Twins, forcing them to hit only weak grounders and soft fly balls until a troublesome, two-run fifth inning. Langston gave up a two-out, two-run single by Knoblauch in the fifth. But the Twins couldn’t get more off Langston and the Angel bullpen preserved a 5-4 victory.

“It was huge for not only me but for our team,” Langston said after the Angels won for only the second time in the last 10 games. “We need to put something together. I need to contribute. The five-run lead was a huge lift for me.

“Pitching-wise, we have to get guys on a roll. Chuck (Finley) has picked us up after not winning a game in April. Now, we have to take the pressure off Chuck. Basically, he’s been our guy. We haven’t been consistent at all.”