Unlikely Hero Snow Halts Angels’ Skid : Baseball: He gets four hits, four RBIs as California snaps losing streak with 6-4 victory over Orioles.

The Angels bid good riddance to the torrid Boston Red Sox, welcomed Cal Ripken Jr. and the Baltimore Orioles, then promptly stopped their three-game losing streak with a 6-4 victory Thursday at Anaheim Stadium.

First baseman J.T. Snow hoisted the foundering Angels on his back, making sure the skid didn’t reach four games.

Snow seemed an unlikely leader, mired as he was in one of his worst slumps of the season. But four hits and four runs batted in did the trick against Baltimore. Snow singled three times and hit a two-run homer.

Biggest of all was his seventh-inning, two-run single off Oriole reliever Arthur Rhodes that snapped a 4-4 tie.

With the Oriole infield at medium depth in the hope of turning an inning-ending double play, Snow sneaked a sharply hit grounder between third baseman Jeff Manto and Ripken at short.

Two runs scored and the Angels had a 6-4 lead. Starter Chuck Finley faced one batter in the eighth, then Manager Marcel Lachemann turned the lead over to the bullpen for safekeeping.

Troy Percival bailed out the Angels in the eighth, retiring the three batters he faced after Finley gave up a lead off single to Bobby Bonilla. Percival has given up one earned run in his past 22 appearances covering 28 1/3 innings.

Lee Smith pitched a scoreless ninth and, with the paid crowd of 22,796 standing and cheering, got pinch hitter Kevin Bass to ground out to end the game. Smith earned his 31st save.

Lachemann picked up his 100th victory as Angel manager.

“It has absolutely no significance to me,” Lachemann said. “That’s not important. This victory was the important thing. We needed a win and we got it, but we still need to play better.”

Snow, whose four hits and four runs batted in equaled career highs set earlier this season, had been having a miserable home stand. He went into Thursday’s game batting .148 (4 for 27). He broke an 0-for-16 slump with a homer in Wednesday’s game. His average dipped to .296, the lowest since June 30. He had hit better than .300 for 36 consecutive games until Tuesday.

“Lately, I’ve been in a little funk,” Snow said. “I haven’t been aggressive enough, but I’m starting to come around.”

Finley halted the Angels’ last losing streak, preventing a fourth consecutive loss with a gritty, eight-inning performance in a 5-3 victory over the New York Yankees last Saturday.

The next day, fellow left-hander Mark Langston called the victory “huge.” Going into Thursday, it was one of only two victories in the first seven games of the Angels’ 11-game home stand.

More than anything else, Boston’s three-game sweep made the Angels seem fallible. They were made to look like something other than the juggernaut that rolled to a double-digit lead in the AL West since the All-Star break. What’s more, their lead over second-place Texas, which had once been 11 games, had dropped to 7 1/2 games going into Thursday.

The Angels lost three in a row to Chicago, Boston and New York, but Finley’s start appeared to cure whatever ailed them. He faced that challenge again Thursday.

Like his last start, Finley hardly made anyone forget Cy Young, but he persevered long enough to get the victory. He gave up four runs and eight hits, including a season-high two home runs, with five strikeouts and three walks in seven-plus innings.

But Finley could not avoid Baltimore catcher Chris Hoiles and all was not as well as it could have been.

In the second, Hoiles’ two-run homer gave the Orioles a 2-1 lead. In the sixth, after Ripken’s run-scoring sacrifice fly, Hoiles hit a bases-empty homer.

Snow’s towering two-run homer down the left-field line and Jorge Fabregas’ run-scoring single drove Baltimore starter Jamie Moyer from the game with no outs in the fourth.

Snow’s homer was his 18th, but only the third he’s hit right-handed. It also was his seventh hit in 12 career at-bats against Moyer.