Young Angels Growing Into August Image

If this is August, and these are the Angels, the bump in the road has to be coming any day, right?

It didn’t come when starting pitchers Shawn Boskie and Mike Bielecki shuffled off to the disabled list, supposedly leaving Marcel Lachemann’s rotation on the brink of total collapse.

No, instead the Angels went out and--so very, very un-Angel-like of them--traded for a better starting pitcher--one named Jim Abbott, to boot.

It didn’t happen when the Cleveland Indians showed up in the other dugout. The Indians supposedly are simply biding time through this American League schedule, twiddling their thumbs while they await their predestined October date with Atlanta.

No, instead the Angels took three of five from Cleveland, beginning a winning streak that had reached six games entering Tuesday’s home stand opener against the Seattle Mariners and Randy Johnson.

This, then, would be the night. Johnson was 11-1 against the league in ‘95, 6-0 against the Angels since June of ‘92, the Big Unit who rings up strikeouts by the case, supposedly throwing fear into every fresh Angel face he glared at.

Tim Salmon’s face, that would have been one. The pregame numbers were almost too much to bear: 19 at-bats against Johnson, one hit, 11 strikeouts, an .053 career batting average.

Bottom of the first, two outs, Salmon’s name is announced. What happens next?

Blindfold and cigarette?

Swing and a prayer?

“Now batting for Salmon . . . some poor fool”

How about a 2-0 pitch, low and away, driven to the opposite field and into the opposite-field bleachers for a 389-foot home run, a 1-0 Angel lead and the ice-breaker to a 7-2 Angel victory that increased their first-place lead to a franchise record 11 games?

Who’d have thought it?

Salmon, who hit it, still was grappling with the concept three hours after making contact.

“The first thing that went through my head was, ‘Was it a foul ball?’ ” Salmon said. “I’ve never hit the ball solid off him. Never in my career.

“I didn’t even see where it went. I looked up and saw [Seattle right fielder] Jay Buhner running after it and that was about it. I said, ‘Hey, I made contact!’ ”

A lot of people are getting awfully old waiting for the wheels to fall off this runaway, out-of-control Angelmobile. This team’s charmed life has to have an expiration date--some day before November, no?--but when Salmon takes Johnson nearly 400 feet in the first inning, the Angels in the dugout start telling themselves, “Not tonight.”

“With any other pitcher, our guys go up there very confident,” Salmon said. “But Johnson, he’s in a totally different category. We have a lot of tough hitters in our lineup, but against him, if you put the ball in play, you say, ‘Hey, I made pretty good contact.’

“What we did tonight says something. Everybody was battling to get something against him. We fought and we struggled and we finally caught a break in the eighth inning and opened up the floodgates.”

Salmon created that opening, too. The Angels led, still nervously, 3-2, before Salmon led off the bottom of the eighth with a single, his third hit of the evening against Johnson. Chili Davis followed with another single. Then the Mariners misplayed a ground ball, Damion Easley singled, Greg Myers doubled, the Angels led, 7-2, and Johnson was about to double his defeat total for the season.

Just another notch in the Angel bat rack, just another day at the yard.

Salmon laughed and shook his head from side to side.

“Not by any means,” he said. “This was a great win for the club. Things couldn’t have worked out better for us. But by no means did any of us feel comfortable up there.”

Not until the final outs in Anaheim and Oakland were recorded. When the A’s edged Texas, 4-3, in 11 innings, the Angels’ lead in the AL West expanded to a full 11 games, larger than any Angel team before them.

Not the ’86 Angels, not the ’82 Angels, not the ’79 Angels, not any group of Angels in 34 1/2 seasons.

If this keeps up, the Angels might even draw more than 22,000 fans for a Tuesday night game against a division rival.

Until then, Jim Edmonds was asked, have the Angels at least convinced the public at large that they are “for real”?

“No,” was Edmonds’ blunt reply.

“It’ll be awhile. But that’s all right with us. This is our home, our house. Fans or no fans, you can’t come into our house and beat us.”

Not even Randy Johnson. That much is for real. For proof, consult the box score.