Bielecki Has Hand in Angel Defeat : Baseball: Pitcher fails to hold lead and Texas hammers away for a 10-6 victory.

The Angels handed Mike Bielecki a four-run lead in the second inning Tuesday.

He fumbled it, bungled it and admitted it after the Angels’ 10-6 loss to the Texas Rangers before an announced crowd of 26,246 at The Ballpark in Arlington.

Again and again Bielecki said he didn’t do his job, failed to take advantage of what the Angel hitters were accomplishing and generally mucked up what he believed could have been a clear-cut victory.

Sure it’s only June, but Bielecki acknowledged that there is a sense of urgency to the three-game series against the Rangers. Tuesday’s victory pulled Texas into a first-place tie with the Angels in the American League West.

“Two teams going for first place--not that it means anything now--but it’s fun being here,” Bielecki said after lasting only 4 1/3 innings. “We got off to a 5-2 lead and it’s tough not staying out there. I just didn’t do my job. We scored runs, played good defense, but the pitching didn’t do it tonight.”

Bielecki gave up nine hits and six runs with two strikeouts and two walks. Texas right fielder Mickey Tettleton, batting all of .215 before the game, homered twice. One home run landed in the upper deck in right field and the other barely squeezed past the right-field foul pole.

In the end, distance didn’t matter as much as frequency. Texas had 15 hits and had at least one batter reach base in seven of eight innings.

“Every inning was a struggle,” said Bielecki, 3-5 with a 5.24 earned-run average. “It was one of those nights when you make bad pitches and they hit them, and if you make good pitches they hit them too.”

It was simple for Manager Marcel Lachemann to pinpoint the trouble. It all centered on location. The pitchers put the ball where the batters could hit it and the result was the Angels’ second consecutive loss.

In many ways, Tuesday’s game seemed like a rerun of Monday’s 7-3 loss at Seattle. The starter waged a losing battle to keep the opposition in check and the hitters won some major victories, but couldn’t keep pace.

Bielecki played the role of Brian Anderson, Monday’s starter. Jim Edmonds turned in a repeat performance, with Tim Salmon stepping in for Tony Phillips.

Edmonds singled in the first inning, extending his hitting streak to 21 games. Salmon homered twice and singled twice, ending an 0-for-17 streak and a 12-game homer-less streak.

It was all downhill from there.

“We didn’t make real good pitches,” Lachemann said, repeating the theme of Monday’s loss. “It was similar to yesterday, really. They even missed some [bad pitches].”

Lachemann also acknowledged the importance of the series.

“I think it’s good preparation for something that hopefully will happen later on,” he said. “We approached it as two teams going for first place in the division.”

The Angels led, 2-0, 4-0 and 5-2, then seemed to hit the wall.

Texas starter Bob Tewksbury (5-4) was lousy for three innings, giving up five runs and seven hits and looking as if he would have a short night. But he retired nine of the next 11 batters he faced before being replaced by Dennis Cook in the seventh.

Salmon’s bases-empty homer in the eighth was the only hit the Angels managed off Cook, who picked up his first save since 1990 when he was with Philadelphia. .

The Rangers’ rally began with Tettleton’s two-run homer in the second, continued with his bases-empty homer in the fourth and built to a climax with a four-run seventh.

First Mike Butcher, then Mike James failed to keep it close.

Ivan Rodriguez hit Butcher’s first pitch into left field for a run-scoring double, giving the Rangers the lead for good, 6-5, in the fifth.

Butcher then left after giving up singles to Rodriguez and Mike Pagliarulo to lead off the seventh. James gave up a two-run double to Otis Nixon and a two-run homer to Will Clark.

Rusty Greer bruised James’ right shoulder with a line drive to start the eighth, forcing James to leave the game.

“It feels like it should feel when you get hit by a shot,” James said. “When it hit, I said, ‘That’s supposed to hurt.’ But it kind of stayed numb for a while. It feels all right now, just sore.”