Falling Angels Can’t Compete With Yankees : Baseball: New York wins easily for third night in a row, 7-2. Mattingly gets 2,000th hit.

The grumbling is louder in the Angel clubhouse each day. They are sick are of hearing the rhetoric about being in a pennant race. They are tired of listening to excuses.

If the Angels really wanted the baseball world to take them seriously as contenders, the New York Yankees have blown their cover.

The Yankees have exploited every flaw in their arsenal the last three days, trouncing the Angels once again Saturday night, 7-2, and leaving no doubt to the 29,354 at Anaheim Stadium who is in the real pennant race.

“It’s a joke, an absolute joke,” one veteran said. “It’s like we’re not even in the same league with these guys. How can anyone say we’re in a pennant race?

“Does anyone really believe that?”

The Angels (42-57), who are a season-low 15 games under .500 once again, have barely looked competitive against the Yankees. The Yankees (59-36) are batting .371 in the first three games of this series, outscoring the Angels 30-12, with 46 hits and six home runs.

The pitching has become so unbearable that Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann, seeing that his position players have become so weary from chasing balls hit to every crevice of Anaheim Stadium, decided to preserve their energy. He allowed the starting position players to show up 30 minutes later than the rest of the team.

“I know I’ve been getting tired out there,” Angel left fielder Bo Jackson said. “We’ve been doing a whole lot of running out there in the outfield.”

It was no different Saturday, with rookie Brian Anderson becoming the latest Angel starter to give his defense a workout, yielding 11 hits and seven earned runs in 4 2/3 innings. In the three games against the Yankees, each starter has lasted only 4 2/3 innings, yielding a 14.14 earned-run average, with 29 hits and six homers in 14 innings.

“I guess it might make some of the veterans nervous that they’re throwing a bunch of kids out there,” Anderson said. “We’re learning every day, but experience is something you can’t teach.”

If the Angels truly believe they are in a race, however, would they really have two rookies in their starting rotation, and another who will celebrate his one-year anniversary in the big leagues this week?

The most frustrating aspect of the whole ordeal is that the Texas Rangers are daring anyone to take the American League West, and no one has bothered. The Rangers, who reached utopia by climbing above .500 on June 13 with a 31-30 record, since have gone 15-21.

Yet, it hasn’t mattered. The Angels continue to bungle any chances to take advantage, going only 16-19 during the same stretch, while remaining five games back with only 19 games remaining before the tentative Aug. 16 strike date.

“There just isn’t much time left,” Angel third baseman Spike Owen said. “It should feel like a pennant race, but it doesn’t.”

Instead, this turned into a night of milestones, and not only the Angels’ dubious feat of having one of their starters yield a homer for the 16th consecutive game.

Yankee first baseman Don Mattingly produced his 2,000th career hit in the seventh inning off reliever Russ Springer, becoming only the sixth Yankee to accomplish the feat. He joins Hall of Famers Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra.

Angel designated hitter Chili Davis then had his magical moment in the eighth inning when he homered off Joe Ausanio for his 1,000th run batted in.

Otherwise, this night was little different than any of the others. There was Bernie Williams leading off the game with a single. There was Paul O’Neill hitting a two-run homer in the first inning. There were the Yankees leading, 7-0, in the fifth inning.

And there were the Angel executives, punching up numbers on the telephone until their fingers were numb, desperately searching for pitching.