Give Edmonds Assist as Smith Saves the Day : Angels: Relief ace bounces back in 6-5 victory over Indians. Center fielder ends game by throwing out Sorrento at second.

The boos started as soon as the Angel bullpen gate swung open in the top of the ninth inning Tuesday night. They were even more pronounced when Lee Smith was introduced as the new Angel pitcher against the Cleveland Indians.

Smith, a veteran of 16 major league seasons who has worn the uniforms of six different teams, understood.

“With the stuff I’ve been throwing lately,” Smith said, “I’d have booed too.”

But two strikeouts and one great throw by center fielder Jim Edmonds later, Smith turned those jeers into cheers, as the Angels held on for a 6-5 victory over the Indians before a paid crowd of 42,468 in Anaheim Stadium.

Smith, who was 0-4 with an 18.78 earned-run average and three blown saves in his previous nine appearances, opened the ninth by striking out Manny Ramirez.

He then caught Jim Thome looking at a low inside fastball for strike three, which brought the crowd to its feet and seemed to restore faith in a closer who had saves in his first 19 save opportunities this season but had faltered of late.

Smith then jumped ahead of Paul Sorrento, 1-and-2, before Sorrento lined an apparent double up the gap in left-center. But Edmonds fielded the ball near the warning track, turned and fired a perfect throw to second baseman Damion Easley, who applied the tag for the game’s final out.

Second base umpire Mike Reilly initially motioned Sorrento safe, but Sorrento’s foot--as replays showed--never reached the bag, and Reilly called him out, giving the Angels a seven-game lead over Texas in the American League West and Smith his 23rd save.

“I probably screwed up when I saved 19 in a row,” Smith said afterward. “People thought I was God. But you’re only as good as your last outing.”

While his teammates were taking batting practice Tuesday, Smith was in the video room with Manager Marcel Lachemann and pitching coach Chuck Hernandez, reviewing tapes of his performances. The three then went to the Angel bullpen, where they worked on a minor adjustment to Smith’s delivery.

“I’ve spent 16 years in the major leagues and I thought I knew what I was doing,” said Smith, the game’s all-time save leader with 457. “I’ve got to credit Lach and Chuck. That’s probably the first time I’ve looked at film in 12 years, and it helped.”

Lachemann said there has been a growing sentiment--at least in the letters he’s getting--to replace Smith with rookie Troy Percival as the team’s closer, but as Lachemann showed Tuesday night, he has not lost confidence in Smith.

“He’s going to get the ball,” Lachemann said. “I told you that and I told other people that. A lot of them told me today I was crazy--I’ve been accused of that on many occasions--but Ramirez, Thome and Sorrento are not exactly three easy guys to go through.”

Neither is the Angel lineup, which scored all of its runs in the first four innings, two of them on rookie left fielder Garret Anderson’s home run and single.

There were still lines at Anaheim Stadium ticket windows an hour into the game, the highly anticipated pitching duel between the Angels’ Chuck Finley and Cleveland’s Orel Hershiser and a playoff preview-type matchup attracting walk-up sales of 15,048.

But those filing in late in the third inning missed Hershiser completely. The Angels knocked the former Dodger right-hander out after 2 1/3 innings, battering him for five runs on five hits.

Included in the barrage was Anderson’s second-inning homer, a 429-foot shot that caromed off the facade of the wall behind the center-field fence, only a few feet short of Bo Jackson’s 1989 All-Star game homer.

Anderson, who has six homers in his last 12 games, added an RBI single to give the Angels a 5-3 lead in the third and bring to an end Hershiser’s shortest outing since Aug. 16, 1991, when he lasted only an inning against Houston.

Finley didn’t last too much longer. Or look that much better. He struggled through 5 1/3 innings, giving up four runs on eight hits and walking four.

Finley ran into trouble in the sixth when Dave Winfield singled, Sandy Alomar walked and Omar Vizquel, after three strikeouts, doubled to left to make it 6-4.

Right-hander John Habyan replaced Finley and got Baerga to line out to second and Belle to ground out to short, preserving the Angels’ two-run lead.

Habyan was pulled after giving up a seventh-inning, bases-empty homer to Thome that pulled Cleveland to within 6-5. Left-hander Bob Patterson got pinch-hitter Sorrento to pop out and walked Winfield. Percival came on to strike out Alomar to end the seventh and hold the Indians scoreless in the eighth.