And on the Seventh Day, DiSarcina Goes to Work

Gary DiSarcina got a rest Saturday night, his first day off since April 25 and only the second of the season.

He needed it.

He spent much of Sunday afternoon sprinting around the basepaths, diving headlong into the dirt down the left-field line in pursuit of foul pops and sliding into second.

“I came into the clubhouse with a little more energy today,” DiSarcina said. “It’s nice to be able to sit back and relax and just watch a game for a change. You get a different perspective. Sometimes we tend to make this game more difficult than it really is.”

On this day, DiSarcina made it look like just another Sunday stroll in the ballpark. Refreshed and rejuvenated, he drove in a career-high three runs with a single, a double and a two-run homer.

“It’s fun to see,” said Manager Marcel Lachemann, who could smile after the Angels snapped a three-game losing streak with an 8-6 victory over Detroit. “Sometimes all you need is a day away to clear out the cobwebs. This is a tough business and you need to find a way to get these guys a rest.”

Lachemann, and Buck Rodgers before him, have been understandably reluctant to bench their defensive anchor, and DiSarcina’s recent emergence as an offensive force has made it that much more difficult to fill out the lineup card without writing “DiSarcina, SS,” at the bottom.

The Angel shortstop has put punch at the No. 9 spot in the order. He is off to his best start on offense. His average hovered around .300 for the first two months of the season.

“It’s unfair for Timmy (Salmon) and Chili (Davis) to have the responsibility of driving in all the runs,” DiSarcina said. “If the guys lower in the order can scratch out a few runs here and there, it makes it a lot easier for them, the pitching staff, a lot of people.”

Recently, however, DiSarcina had been struggling to carry that self-imposed weight. And his average was a season-low .285 after going nine for 59 before Sunday. There was a time he was satisfied to hit .240 and scoop up every ground ball, but those days are history.

He already has three homers, nine doubles, 34 runs and 24 RBIs this year and will bring a .294 average into Kansas City today. The last two seasons, he has averaged three homers, 20 doubles, 46 runs and 44 RBIs.

“All the work I’ve done with Rod (Carew, Angel hitting instructor) the past two years is paying off and now I know I can do better than settling for .240,” DiSarcina said. “I think I have the opportunity to finish this season the way it started.”

A few more afternoons like this will go a long way toward that end.

In the fifth inning, he homered to left off Phil Stidham after Chris Turner had tripled.

“I had left a lot of guys on base the last couple of weeks,” he said, “and I wasn’t really contributing. So I was trying to hit a fly ball, well, actually I was just trying to hit it. He left a changeup up and I was able to get around on it.”

In the sixth, he sent a slicing line drive down the right-field line and when the ball took a hop away from Junior Felix, DiSarcina kept going to second. He scored on Chad Curtis’ single to right. And he drove in his third run of the day in the eighth with a single up the middle.

Ah, the difference a day off makes.

“My ego is not big enough to want any Cal Ripken streaks,” DiSarcina said. “When it’s time for a rest, it’s time for a rest.”