Magrane Fails, Angels Lose : Baseball: After good outing Sunday, left-hander fizzles and Tigers win, 8-4.

Today’s assignment, Angel fans, is to compare and contrast. The subject is left-hander Joe Magrane, the losing pitcher in the Angels’ 8-4 loss to Detroit Friday night at Anaheim Stadium.

In his last start Sunday, Magrane was superb. Friday, he was not.

Sunday, he gave up one run and four hits in his first complete game in four years. Friday, he gave up four runs and six hits with three walks, three strikeouts, three wild pitches and one hit batter. He didn’t make it past the fifth inning.

Sunday, he dazzled the Milwaukee Brewers with a firm command of his pitches. Friday, he couldn’t contain the Tigers, who homered for the 17th consecutive game.

Dumping all the blame for this loss on Magrane, 2-3 with a 6.57 earned-run average, wouldn’t be fair. This was only his seventh start since returning from elbow surgery Feb. 8. Besides, there were plenty of other reasons why the Angels lost for the sixth time in eight games on this 10-game home stand.

But inconsistent pitching continues to overshadow all other Angel problems. Five wild pitches--relievers Mark Leiter and Mike Butcher had the other two--stand out.

Magrane said he’s not going to stop throwing breaking pitches into the lower portion of the strike zone simply because he had one rough night.

“I’ve gotten a lot of guys out that way,” he said. “In the past, I’ve gotten a lot of swinging strikeouts on those pitches. I’m certainly not going to deviate from that now. It’s what I’ve been taught, what I’ve had the most success doing and where I’m going to continue to pitch.”

Concerns would appear to be mounting for the listless Angels, who managed only seven hits against Detroit pitching Friday.

So what is it going to take pull the Angels out of their slide? Manager Marcel Lachemann ticked off the answers.

“We have to have a well-pitched game for one thing,” he said. “We need to do all the little things right. We need to get runners on and we need to advance them. We need to get timely hitting.

“I get the feeling we should be doing better than we are. I think this team is better than this. I really do.” Magrane agreed.

“I do think we should be doing better,” he said. “We’re not the type of team that can rely on our offense like the Tigers. We’re going to have to pitch well and hit well at the same time.”

Lachemann said he’s not a fan of team meetings and doesn’t imagine holding court in an attempt to snap the Angels out of their funk. He prefers to handle things in a one-on-one setting.

“Meetings have their time and place, but it’s like anything else,” said Lachemann, who did hold a meeting when the club was in Toronto in late May. “If you’re talking all the time, nobody will listen. I would rather deal with individuals. I will get (angry) once in a while and I wouldn’t want my wife and kids around when I do.

“It takes quite a bit to get that far with me.”

The Angels are 3-10 in the 13 games since Magrane defeated Detroit and starter Mike Moore May 26 in Tiger Stadium. They are 2-7 in June, 8-12 under Lachemann and have fallen to a season-high 6 1/2 games behind American League West-leading Texas.

And the question is whether that’s enough to send Lachemann into a fit of anger?

Certainly, nothing could save Magrane from himself Friday.

He left trailing, 4-2. Travis Fryman’s two-run home run to left field in the fifth inning gave the Tigers the lead for good.

By the end of the fifth, Magrane had thrown 109 lackluster pitches and Lachemann believed that was plenty, summoning Leiter to start the sixth.

“I wish my command would have been a little better,” Magrane said. “If Fryman doesn’t hit that home run, who knows? It might have been a different ballgame.

“There were a couple of pitches where I could have made better pitches. Being behind, 3-0, to Fryman I didn’t want to walk him. I wanted to make him hit it.”

And so Fryman did, sending Magrane and the Angels reeling.