Little Ball Gives Angels a Big Boost : Baseball: DiSarcina bunt sparks them to 5-0 victory over Texas. Abbott’s three-hitter ends nine-game losing streak.

You know a team is starving for success when a player executes a sacrifice bunt in the first inning, returns to the dugout and is mobbed as if he had hit a game-winning home run.

That was the reception Angel shortstop Gary DiSarcina got Sunday in The Ballpark at Arlington, where he was overwhelmed by a team that had done virtually nothing right the previous nine games and would latch onto anything positive.

But DiSarcina’s bunt provided a spark, Tim Salmon’s two-out, RBI single in the first inning provided some hope--not to mention a rare lead--and Jim Abbott’s pitching provided the kind of lift the sagging Angels need to get back into the playoff picture.

Abbott threw a complete-game three-hitter to lead the Angels to a 5-0 victory over the Texas Rangers, ending the Angel losing streak at nine and keeping them within two games of first-place Seattle entering a crucial two-game series against the Mariners on Tuesday.

The victory also moved the Angels to within half a game of New York in the wild-card standings, and if they are to have any shot of winning the American League West--or reaching the playoffs--they believe they must sweep Seattle, which extended its win streak to six with Sunday’s dramatic, 9-8 victory over the Oakland Athletics.

“If we get swept, we can pretty much write off the season,” DiSarcina said. “We have to take both, not just for the West, but for the wild card.”

Sunday’s victory at least provided some momentum for the Angels.

Abbott, who also stopped the Angels’ previous nine-game losing streak with a 5-3 victory over Baltimore on Sept. 4, walked three, struck out four and received outstanding defensive support from second baseman Damion Easley, who turned two clutch double plays and made a difficult, over-the-shoulder catch of a popup with two runners on and two out in the seventh.

Greg Myers and Easley each knocked in runs in the second. Salmon, who is batting .682 in Arlington this season, added a two-out, RBI single in the fifth, and he singled to keep a run-scoring rally going in the eighth.

“The longer that [losing] streak went on, you almost forget how to win,” Salmon said. “Today we played good defense, got some great pitching and timely hitting. . . . I was thinking, ‘Wow, that was easy.’ When you’re struggling, it’s amazing how tough it is to put all those things together.”

That’s why DiSarcina’s first-inning bunt was so important. When a team hasn’t been moving runners up, getting clutch hits, hitting cut-off men, retiring opposing No. 9 hitters or fielding routine grounders, the execution of a simple baseball fundamental can be quite uplifting.

“I think we were just looking for any little thing to get us going,” said DiSarcina, who moved from the No. 9 spot to the No. 2 hole Sunday. “At this stage we have to get as many guys into scoring position as possible, and just to get a lead was a big boost.

“It seems like we’ve always been playing from behind, and the more you do that, the more you press.”

The Angels’ streak of consecutive innings without a lead ended at 75 in the first inning, which Tony Phillips started with a walk. It was the first time since Sept. 11 that Phillips reached base in his first at-bat.

Phillips advanced on DiSarcina’s sacrifice and scored on Salmon’s single off Texas starter Bobby Witt. J.T. Snow and Garret Anderson led off the second with singles and eventually scored, and DiSarcina tripled and scored in the fifth. Jim Edmonds, who struck out his first three times up, singled and scored on Snow’s sacrifice fly in the eighth.

The Angels got the lead-off batter on base in five of nine innings, every starter except Easley and designated hitter Chili Davis got a hit, and Abbott threw the team’s eighth complete game of the season, keeping the ball down in the strike zone and Ranger hitters guessing with his off-speed pitches.

The Angels, who have lost 27 of 36 games to blow an 11-game lead in the West, hope Sunday’s victory will catapult them through their remaining six games, two at Seattle and four at home against Oakland.

“It will help, but it doesn’t totally erase the last month,” DiSarcina said. “To get out of a slump is a grind, and you can’t do it in one day. One win doesn’t mean, ‘OK, we’re out of this thing, we can put it on automatic pilot.’ The next game has to be a continuation of today’s game.”

* MARINERS RALLY, WIN

Tino Martinez’s two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth gave the Mariners a 9-8 victory over Oakland. C10