Angels on Ice Again : Baseball: Banged-up, battered, bruised team begins a trip to the East in New York with its fourth loss in a row, 12-4.

The Angels discovered new depths Tuesday night in a 12-4 loss to the New York Yankees that gave them their longest losing streak of the season--four games--and their seventh loss in their last eight games.

Somehow their mood was upbeat, the Angels remaining confident they will snap out of their slump and win the AL West, refusing to admit the wheels might be coming off what had been a smooth ride until mid-August.

“The wheels aren’t even close to squeaking because I know the type of team we have,” said pitcher Chuck Finley, who was bombed for five first-inning runs before a paid crowd of 24,223 in Yankee Stadium.

“If this was the type of team that was put together with rubber bands and glue, that might be the case, but this team is solid.”

A quick scan around the clubhouse told a different story.

There was center fielder Jim Edmonds, with an ice pack around his lower back. Edmonds strained another muscle while swinging in the fifth inning, and he said he feels worse than he did on Aug. 17, when he strained a lower back muscle by crashing into the Anaheim Stadium wall.

Edmonds, who left Tuesday’s game in the seventh inning, had to sit out a game after the earlier injury. He’ll be re-evaluated today, but there’s a chance he may sit out part of this nine-game trip.

And there was shortstop Damion Easley, with an ice pack around his shoulder. Easley sat out his second consecutive game because of rotator cuff tendinitis but hopes to return today.

There were no bandages around pitcher Mark Langston’s arm--he didn’t pitch Tuesday--but the combination of tendinitis in his shoulder and elbow have made him questionable for his next scheduled start Saturday.

Things are so bad that even bullpen catcher Mick Billmeyer had to wrap his shoulder in ice. With all the pitchers he’s been warming up lately, it’s no wonder he came down with a sore arm.

“This game is humbling us right now,” said third baseman Tony Phillips, one of three Angels to homer Tuesday night. “The game’s gonna get you sooner or later. Every year it gets every team, every individual, because you can’t play well every day, day in and day out.

“We just have to battle through it and get into a situation where we’re playing well going into the playoffs. I have no doubts we’re going to make it, but you don’t want to go into the post-season playing like we are now.”

It’s hard to imagine the Angels reaching the playoffs if this play continues, but they managed to maintain their eight-game lead, thanks to Texas’ loss to Minnesota, the Rangers’ fourth defeat in the last six games.

And don’t think the Angels aren’t thankful. After saying he’s not worried about the Angels getting back on track, designated hitter Chili Davis asked reporters, “Did Texas win?”

No. “Whew,” Davis said.

Though Finley gave up as many runs in the first inning Tuesday as he did in his three previous starts--all victories--combined against the Yankees, the Angels still had a chance Tuesday night.

Garret Anderson’s RBI fielder’s choice in the second inning, Phillips’ bases-empty homer in the third and successive solo homers by Tim Salmon and J.T. Snow in the fourth off David Cone brought the Angels to within 5-4.

But the Yankees scored twice in the fourth inning and then took advantage of some shoddy relief work by John Habyan and Mike Butcher to blow the game open with four runs in the seventh.

Habyan gave up three runs in two-thirds of an inning, one scoring on an extremely wild pitch.

Butcher walked two batters with the bases loaded.

The Angels had only five hits--that gives them 20 in their past four games--and signs of their frustration were evident. Davis snapped a bat in half over his knee after a fifth-inning groundout and was ejected after arguing a called third strike in the eighth.

“After the game I told the guys I screwed up the game,” Finley said. “I deflated them, took away their momentum. We just need to have one good game where we swing the bats and pitch the way we’re capable of. This team is no different than the one that was winning a few weeks ago.”