Harkey Helps Pull Angels Out of a Rut : Baseball: Fifth starter’s six-hitter, offense’s four home runs and good defense add up to 9-2 victory over Texas.

Some players need the security of knowing they’ll be in the lineup every day or on the mound every fifth day. Then there’s Mike Harkey, the Angel pitcher who seems to thrive on the edge.

Harkey, a recent waiver-wire acquisition, pitched a six-hitter, walking one and striking out none, to help the Angels win, 9-2, over the Texas Rangers on Monday before a paid crowd of 21,057 at Anaheim Stadium.

“I enjoy the challenge of not knowing whether I’m going to get another start,” Harkey said, “because I always pitch like it’s going to be my last one.”

It was Harkey’s first complete game in almost two years, the Angels’ sixth of the season, and it snapped the Angels out of a four-game mini-funk, in which they had committed 10 errors and lost three games.

The Angels, who salvaged a split of the four-game series with Texas, made one error Monday, shortstop Rod Correia’s off-balance throw past first baseman J.T. Snow after fielding Ivan Rodriguez’s fourth-inning chopper behind second base.

But they also made six outstanding defensive plays--two by Correia and another by center fielder Jim Edmonds, who fielded Luis Ortiz’s fly ball to left-center field in the second inning, turned and threw out Rusty Greer at third base for the final out before Mickey Tettleton crossed the plate.

The Angels hit four home runs, including a tone-setting, three-run shot in the first inning by Snow, who had been mired in a 3-for-29 slump. Tony Phillips was 4 for 30 before his two-run homer in the fourth; Tim Salmon added a bases-empty blast in the fourth, his 24th homer of the season, and Edmonds hit a solo shot in the seventh for his 23rd homer of the season.

But pitching and defense were the main themes of the day.

“We’ve been kind of sloppy lately, so it was important to play a good defensive game,” Snow said. “It’s great playing behind Harkey because he throws a lot of strikes and works fast. He definitely keeps you on your toes.”

Harkey no longer relies on the 90-m.p.h. fastball he had at Cal State Fullerton in 1985-87 and with the Chicago Cubs early in his career, but the 28-year-old right-hander changed speeds on all of his pitches Monday, kept the ball down in the strike zone and worked ahead of batters all afternoon.

The Angels picked him up from Oakland on July 19 as an emergency starter to fill in for the injured Shawn Boskie and Mike Bielecki, but after four Angel starts--three victories and a no-decision--Harkey is looking more and more like a permanent solution.

“You’re not going to lose your job when you pitch like that,” Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann said.

“He’s given us a solid outing each time out, and to pitch a complete game on top of that today was a big boost.”

The media contingent around Harkey’s locker was so large that Boskie, Harkey’s neighbor in the Angel clubhouse, could barely get to his cubicle.

Boskie will make the first of three scheduled rehabilitative starts at Class-A Lake Elsinore on Thursday, but it seems that Harkey is elbowing him right out of the rotation.

“I just hope I have the opportunity to remain here the rest of the year and maybe next year,” Harkey said. “It’s been tough for me because I’ve been bouncing around a lot lately.”

Harkey, a first-round draft pick in 1987, became a free agent after four injury-riddled seasons with the Cubs in 1990-93 and turned down a $1-million offer from the Angels to sign with Colorado in 1994.

But he went 1-6 with a 5.79 earned-run average for the Rockies, was released after the season and signed a minor league contract in the spring with Oakland, with which he went 4-6 with a 6.27 ERA before being released on July 12.

Harkey has been on the disabled list five times since 1990, but he’s sound now and contributing to a team that has an 11-game lead in the American League West.