ANGEL NOTEBOOK : Hitters Learn the Secret Is Not to Back Off

Sure, Angel hitters have been shooting baseballs around with the abandon of an Uzi-toting bad guy in a Steven Seagal film. And, yeah, 10 or 12 runs is going to win a lot of games. But there’s more to this team’s success than line drives and players whirling around the bases in an offensive frenzy.

Thanks in large part to Tony Phillips, the Angels have developed an attitude.

“Even after we got the big [8-0] lead early against Detroit [Sunday], we still came back and scored in the seventh and eighth,” Manager Marcel Lachemann said. “They just keep playing the game and they stay after each other.

“Of course Tony is the biggest factor in that, but now they’re all starting to do it. And that’s really important because the minute you back off, you’re in trouble.”

Phillips came up with Oakland in the early ‘80s and learned the unwritten rules of the game from players such as Davey Lopes, Joe Morgan and Carney Lansford. Now, he says it’s his responsibility to pass down that “tradition.”

“Look, I bust my butt out there and there’s no excuse for everyone not doing the same,” Phillips said. “And if I see it, I’ll say something about it. Guys talking to other guys on the bench, that’s bull. That whispering [stuff] is cancerous. You got something to say, you say it to a guy’s face.”

Phillips, who arrived in Anaheim after an April 13 trade with the Tigers, didn’t waste any time displaying his confrontational style. A few of the Angels’ young guns may have been taken aback.

“I remember I felt picked on as a rookie and so I was beginning to feel like a real [jerk] after I got here,” he said. “I went to [hitting instructor] Rod Carew to talk about it and he said it was just what this team needed.”

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Another factor in the Angels’ ascent to the top of the American League West standings has been a solid--and sometimes spectacular--defense.

The Angels are tied with Kansas City, New York and Minnesota with a league-leading .985 fielding percentage and Gary DiSarcina has not committed an error in 47 consecutive games, the longest current streak by a major league shortstop.

“Defense is the one thing you can control in this game and you have to be able to separate offense and defense,” DiSarcina said. “You can’t look at the scoreboard. You have to play every pitch the same way.

“And when you’re way ahead or way behind, those are the games you work the hardest. You can’t afford to ever get lazy.”

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Some oft-burned Angel fans might be waiting for a late-summer fall from grace, but designated hitter Chili Davis doesn’t think the Angels’ youthful lineup will falter.

“I’m not the kind of person who would sit and wait for them to come down, anyway, but the more I play with these guys the more legit they seem,” he said. “They believe they’re good and that’s the first step.”