BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : ANGELS : Edmonds Feels OK but Doesn’t Start

What Jim Edmonds feared most Friday morning was waking up. Not that he was writhing in pain after leaving Thursday night’s game against the Boston Red Sox in the top of the eighth inning because of a strained lower back.

“But I thought I might wake up and not be able to move,” said Edmonds, who began Friday night’s game against the New York Yankees with an American League-leading 92 runs batted in, 28 home runs and a .309 average.

“I felt a lot better than I thought I would, though. I didn’t hit the wall that hard [after catching Mike Greenwell’s fifth-inning fly], but my body tensed up when I hit it, and I knocked my hip out of place.”

Edmonds was listed as day-to-day Thursday night, but by Friday afternoon that became minute-to-minute. An hour before the game, the lineup cards posted in the Angel dugout and clubhouse still had blank spots in the No. 2 holes.

Edmonds said he felt strong enough to play, but his body language during batting practice--he appeared a bit uncomfortable--spoke volumes to Manager Marcel Lachemann, who decided to hold Edmonds out of the starting lineup and start Dave Gallagher in center.

“He’s kind of stiff, sore and bruised, but he’ll be fine,” trainer Rick Smith said. “It’s the kind of thing where he’s not going to be 100% in a day. With therapy and treatment, he should be able to get through it.”

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Lachemann has been mentioned as a manager-of-the-year candidate, but he wouldn’t take manager-of-the-night honors Thursday. Asked about his late-inning pitching strategy against the Red Sox, Lachemann said: “I screwed up.”

Lachemann had John Habyan, a middle reliever, pitching the eighth and ninth innings of a 3-3 game. Habyan got into--and out--of a first-and-third, no-out situation in the eighth but gave up the winning run in the ninth.

The Red Sox left Anaheim with a 4-3 victory in which they didn’t even have to face three of the Angels’ top relievers, Lee Smith, Troy Percival or Mike James.

“Normally in a tie game at home I’d use Percival or Smith in the ninth because it’s like a save situation,” Lachemann said. “You give our team a chance to win in the bottom of the ninth, and if we don’t score then I could have run someone else out there. Part of it was I was trying to stretch some innings out of some people, but basically I made a mistake.”

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Tim Salmon’s first-inning walk Friday ended a rare streak in which the Angel right fielder had played consecutive games without reaching base by a hit, walk or hit batsman. That hadn’t happened since April 28-29, 1994, and has happened only six times in his career. . . . Yankee left-hander Sterling Hitchcock (6-7), originally scheduled to pitch Monday at Oakland, has been moved up to Sunday’s game against the Angels, replacing struggling right-hander Scott Kamieniecki (3-4).