Angels Show Signs of Life in 9-3 Victory : Baseball: Key players are making the big plays at the right time, just like old times.

With their role as foils for Cal Ripken Jr. Fest ’95 a part of history, the Angels returned to Anaheim Stadium to renew their focus on winning the American League West.

Perhaps the arrival of the Minnesota Twins, the worst team in the major leagues, signaled the worst is over.

After all, the Angels handled the Twins with an ease not seen in weeks. Their 9-3 victory before an announced crowd of 21,738 enabled the Angels to maintain their six-game lead over second-place Seattle.

For one night at least, the Angels again resembled the hard-hitting club with strong pitching that seemed bent on running away with the division title only a month ago.

The Angels’ attention seemed to stray in Baltimore as Ripken first tied, then broke Lou Gehrig’s streak of 2,130 consecutive games played. Fact is, they appeared to lose their way long before hitting Camden Yards, however.

Friday, they got runners on base, moved them along and built their largest lead since Aug. 20.

Tony Phillips led off the first inning with a bases-empty homer and J.T. Snow later hit his 20th homer, a two-run shot in the seventh. The Angels also sent nine batters to the plate in the sixth, taking advantage of three Minnesota errors and turning a taut, 2-2, game into a runaway.

It was the type of game that seemed so routine, so mundane in July and the first part of August.

Now, it’s September and the Angels found a new appreciation for such an easy victory.

“We’ve played with some leads this year, but we haven’t had one in a while,” Manager Marcel Lachemann said. “It’s a building block. We came home with the intention of trying to get some things going. It was good to get back and get our feet on the ground.”

Left-hander Mark Langston (14-4) went seven strong innings, giving up three bases-empty home runs, but allowed only one other hit and struck out seven.

Troy Percival and Lee Smith, who hardly pitched during the Angels’ run of 17 losses in 21 games, held the Twins scoreless in the eighth and ninth.

“A lot of it started with Mark on the mound,” Lachemann said.

There was a sense of great urgency throughout Anaheim Stadium as the Angels opened a pivotal nine-game home stand against Minnesota, Chicago and Kansas City.

True, they had lost only 4 1/2 games in the standings, but staggering to the finish line wasn’t exactly what the Angels had in mind.

“There’s no excuse for what’s happening right now,” General Manager Bill Bavasi said before the game. “We took a 10-game lead, lost our focus and fell apart through a lack of concentration and effort.”

That the Angels haven’t lost more ground in the standings isn’t comforting to Bavasi.

“We have to get back to a point where we’re taking it pitch by pitch like we did through most of the season,” he said. “We have to do all the little things that reduce the games to pure physical ability. We have to beat people or get beat on physical talent. We can’t continue to play bad baseball.

“Hitting comes and goes and I think ours will come again, but the pitching and defense have to be more consistent.

“All I care about it how we play and execute. Now is the time to turn ourselves around.”

Phillips took that notion to heart, hitting balls off a tee at Anaheim Stadium for 90 minutes on the Angels’ day off Thursday.

“I don’t enjoy embarrassing myself,” said Phillips, batting .197 since July 30.

Chuck Knoblauch led off the game with a solo home run, marking the 28th consecutive time the Angels had trailed at some point in a game.

“After Mark gave up the home run to the first guy, I could see a lot of people going ‘Oh no, here we go again,’ ” Lachemann said. “But Mark battled and Tony came back with that home run right away and that was a big boost for us.”