Beaten Yet Again, Slumping Angels Have No Answers : Baseball: Playoff picture dims as Finley is rocked in first inning and Texas hands California ninth loss in a row, 5-1.

The Angels threw $9.5 million worth of arms at the Texas Rangers this weekend, and what do they have to show for it so far? Nothing.

There are reasons Mark Langston makes $5 million a year and Chuck Finley $4.5 million a year--they’re the top two pitchers in the Angel rotation, the players the team counts on in big games, the veterans who are supposed to stop Angel losing streaks.

But Langston couldn’t beat the Rangers Friday night and Finley couldn’t give the Angels a chance to beat them Saturday night, giving up five first-inning runs in a 5-1 loss before a paid crowd of 36,675 in the Ballpark at Arlington.

It was the Angels’ ninth consecutive loss, their second nine-game skid in the past month, and their 27th loss in the last 35 games.

The Angels extended their streak of consecutive innings without a lead to 75 and have fallen two games behind the first-place Seattle Mariners in the American League West.

The New York Yankees’ doubleheader sweep of Detroit on Saturday also pushed the Angels 1 1/2 games back in the wild-card race, and the Angel playoff picture is dimming by the day.

The Yankees close the season with one more game against Detroit, two at Milwaukee and three at Toronto, teams that began this weekend with a combined winning percentage of .429. After closing a three-game series in Texas today, the Angels play red-hot Seattle twice and Oakland four times.

Angel first base coach Joe Maddon and media relations director John Sevano have vowed not to shave until the Angels win. At this rate, they’ll both look like Father Time.

“We were the best team for three months, but you’ve got to be the best team when it counts,” shortstop Gary DiSarcina said. “Granted, we’ve had injuries, but so have other teams. Seattle lost Ken Griffey Jr. for a long time and Texas lost Dean Palmer.

“The real good teams overcome it, they’re capable of turning it up at crunch time. We haven’t done it, plain and simple.”

The official time of game Saturday was 2 hours 53 minutes, but it seemed more like about 15 minutes--that’s how long it was actually a game .

Otis Nixon, who went four for four, Mark McLemore and Will Clark opened the Ranger first with singles, resulting in one run, and Juan Gonzalez blasted a three-run homer to center field.

Mickey Tettleton followed with a homer to left for a 5-0 lead, more than enough runs for Ranger right-hander Roger Pavlik against the Angels’ anemic offense. Pavlik (10-9) allowed only three hits in seven innings and pitched out of a few jams created by his six walks.

Finley, an all-star this season, shut out the Rangers from the second through sixth innings but wound up allowing nine hits to fall to 13-12.

It was another in a long line of pathetic pitching performances for Angel starters, who are 7-22 with a 6.93 earned-run average in 35 games since Aug. 16. Finley hasn’t won a game since Aug. 24.

“I don’t think it’s a matter of the team doubting Langston and Finley, or losing confidence in them; we’re just not playing well,” Manager Marcel Lachemann said. “It’s not just the pitching. We haven’t put a whole game together. I wish I had an explanation.”

The Angels eked out their run in the fourth inning Saturday when Tim Salmon singled, Chili Davis walked and Damion Easley grounded a two-out RBI single to center.

Andy Allanson walked to load the bases, but Ranger shortstop Benji Gil made a great play on DiSarcina’s slow roller up the middle, fielding it with his bare hand and throwing DiSarcina out to end the inning.

The Angels had runners on first and second with one out in the third, but Jim Edmonds hit into an inning-ending double play.

The clutch hits have virtually evaporated for the Angels, who led the major leagues in runs for much of the season. In fact, in 26 games since Aug. 25, Edmonds, Davis, J.T. Snow and Garret Anderson--the Nos. 2, 4, 5 and 6 batters for the Angels--have 37 RBIs combined.

“You could see this coming--you knew we’d struggle for a week or so--but you couldn’t see it coming for this long, not for this team,” Edmonds said. “It’s the same thing every night. I’m tired of talking about it.”