Angels’ Hudler Redeems Himself : Baseball: After failing Monday, he leads 12-3 victory over the Red Sox.

Angel utility player Rex Hudler was in a surprisingly chipper mood when he got to Fenway Park Tuesday. He couldn’t hide his enthusiasm when he saw his name in the starting lineup.

Hudler ignited an Angel revival and a Green Monster mash, as the Angels whipped the Boston Red Sox, 12-3, before a paid crowd of 23,977, ending Boston’s win streak at seven and the Angels’ losing streak at two.

It was as if Hudler’s failures of Monday night, when he popped out with the tying run on third base in the eighth inning, hadn’t happened.

“What a country,” Hudler said. “Most people have a performance like mine Monday night and they get fired. I come back and I get to play in Fenway Park.”

Hudler, showing his appreciation for the second chance, slapped a double off the left-field wall and scored in the first inning, keyed a four-run second with a three-run homer into the screen above the wall, reached on an error, stole second and scored during a three-run fourth, and singled in the seventh.

Left fielder Tony Phillips, 5 for 35 in the past 10 games, hit two opposite-field homers into the left-field net, including a three-run shot in the fifth, and added two singles, all with the bat that was confiscated before Sunday’s game against the New York Yankees.

And third baseman Carlos Martinez knocked a homer over the left-field screen in the sixth inning, another highlight of the Angels’ season-high 17-hit attack that helped make the Fenway debut of Red Sox rookie Brian Looney, a former Boston College standout who grew up in Cheshire, Conn., quite forgettable.

But challenging Hudler and Phillips for Angel comeback-player-of-the-week honors was pitcher Mark Langston, who gave up only one run on seven hits and struck out three in six innings to gain the victory.

This came only two days after Langston failed to get out of the first inning against the Yankees, who bombed him for eight runs on six hits in an 11-3 victory Sunday.

It also came on a night when a stiff breeze was blowing out to left field, potentially disastrous for a left-hander in Fenway.

“You can’t ever pitch to a ballpark or conditions, you have to stay with your game plan,” said Langston (4-1). “My job was easy after we scored all those runs. I just kept the ball on the outside corner, threw strikes and let the defense do the rest.”

The Angels played their fifth consecutive errorless game and backed Langston with three double plays, two started by Martinez and one by Hudler, and an outstanding catch by center fielder Jim Edmonds of Mike Greenwell’s drive to the deepest part of the park, in right-center, in the fourth.

Though the first-place Angels are only two games past the quarter point of the season, Manager Marcel Lachemann didn’t underestimate the significance of the victory, both for the team, which hasn’t had a three-game losing streak yet, and for Langston.

“We needed a win, and it was an important win for Mark,” Lachemann said. “He’s one of our two veteran starters, the guys we really count on. They’re the people you expect to do these types of things. That’s why these guys make the big cash.”

Hudler, who makes less per season ($300,000) than Langston, who makes $5 million, pays in taxes, is all about enthusiasm and excitement, two traits he usually displays from the bench. But with second baseman Damion Easley out because of a sprained wrist, he got to bring his act onto the field again.

“He came out and picked the whole team up,” Phillips said. “He plays with a lot of fire, but he’s not around because he’s a rah-rah guy. He can play. He ain’t goofy--he’s crazy. He’s missing something upstairs. But that’s what makes him a player.”