No Easy Outs for Angels : Baseball: New York hands them their third consecutive defeat, 7-3, and Cone looms tonight.

The Angels lost their third consecutive game for only the second time this season, falling to the New York Yankees, 7-3, Friday night in front of an announced crowd of 30,921 in Anaheim Stadium, and trouble awaits on the Big A mound tonight.

After losing to the Boston Red Sox and ace Roger Clemens Thursday night and to tough Yankee right-hander Jack McDowell on Friday, the Angels have to face 1994 Cy Young Award winner David Cone tonight.

“I’m already turning in my sleep--I know who’s pitching [tonight],” Angel third baseman Tony Phillips said. “We’re going through a tough time right now. We’re banged up a bit, we have to face Clemens, McDowell and Cone . . . those guys are aces, and you don’t make your living off aces.”

The Angels have clubbed aces and just about everyone else this season with a potent offense that leads the major leagues in runs and ranks second in the American League in batting, but the runs have slowed to a trickle and the clutch hits have virtually evaporated.

Could the Angels, who maintained their 9 1/2-game lead in the AL West thanks to Texas’ loss, finally be feeling the pressure of a pennant race?

“It’s in the back of your mind, but you don’t think of the pennant race when you’re out there playing a game,” Phillips said. “It’s not the pennant race that makes you press--it’s the Red Sox and the Yankees. They’re good teams, and you know you have to play well against them.”

The Angels managed 11 hits off McDowell but couldn’t come up with one to break the game open. They had the bases loaded in the first but got their only run on Chili Davis’ double-play grounder. After Davis and J.T. Snow singled to open the sixth, Garret Anderson lined into a double play.

It all seemed out of character for the Angels, and keeping with that theme, the team that has found so many creative ways to win games this season came up with an unusual way to lose one Friday night.

The Yankees scored the eventual winning run on an incomplete pass from Snow, the Angel first baseman, to Phillips.

Sound strange? So was the play.

With Wade Boggs on third and Paul O’Neill on first in the third inning, Ruben Sierra chopped a grounder that bounced over pitcher Jim Abbott’s head.

Shortstop Damion Easley and Phillips both charged the ball, which Easley fielded and threw to first but not in time to catch Sierra. Boggs scored, and O’Neill didn’t slow down as he rounded second.

Phillips, who was behind the mound, raced back to cover third, and Snow, a star quarterback at Los Alamitos High School, led him with a lob pass to the bag, displaying more of a touch than most Ram quarterbacks who played on this field.

But Phillips, who played some receiver in high school, couldn’t make like Jerry Rice--the ball tipped off his glove and into foul territory behind third, as O’Neill scored to give the Yankees a 4-3 lead.

“Wasn’t that incredible?” second baseman Rex Hudler said. “What a pass. I watched J.T. and it was like slow-motion. He dropped back in the pocket, planted and threw. It’s too bad Tony couldn’t make the catch. Maybe he heard footsteps.”

Said Manager Marcel Lachemann: “That’s not a play you design, or work on in spring training.”

McDowell (11-8) made the lead hold up, outdueling Abbott (9-6 over the next six innings, and the Yankees added three insurance runs--one on Sierra’s RBI single and two on Mike Stanley’s single--in the top of the ninth to pull away.

John Wetteland retired two batters with runners on first and third in the ninth to record his 22nd save.

Abbott, a 2-1 winner over Minnesota in his last start, pitched eight innings, allowing six runs (all earned) on 10 hits, walking three and striking out four.

New York had scored twice in the first when Boggs walked, advanced to third on Bernie Williams’ hit-and-run single and came home on O’Neill’s fielder’s choice. O’Neill later scored on Stanley’s sacrifice fly.

After scoring on Davis’ double-play ball in the first, the Angels went ahead with two runs in the second. Anderson led off with a single and advanced to third on Hudler’s chopper over Boggs’ head at third. Hudler took second on the throw. Anderson scored on a passed ball, and Hudler scored on Jorge Fabregas’ slow roller to second. But they were shut out over the final six innings.

“We still have a nice cushion--I don’t see anyone panicking,” Hudler said. “We’re playing some good teams, give them credit. No one’s holding their heads.”