Angels Revived, Ready for Playoff : Baseball: After defeating Oakland, 5-2, to tie for AL West title, they head to Seattle to settle division.

Improbably, the Angels blew an 11-game American League West lead. Just as improbably, they came back to make up three games on the Seattle Mariners in the final five days on the schedule.

Now the Angels head back to Seattle and try to complete their comeback where it began last week.

The Angels, on the verge of joining baseball’s list of great chokers, beat the Oakland Athletics, 5-2, Sunday. The Angels’ fifth straight victory left them tied with Seattle at 78-66.

“We were great for three-quarters of the season, lost it, but were able to pull it back together just in time,” said Jim Edmonds, who had four hits and drove in three runs.

The Mariners, two in front of the Angels heading into Saturday’s games, lost, 9-3, at Texas Sunday. That set up a one-game showdown this afternoon in Seattle.

Mark Langston (15-6) is scheduled to pitch for the Angels against Randy Johnson (17-2) in only the eighth regular-season playoff in baseball history and first since 1980.

“This is the first step,” California Manager Marcel Lachemann said. “We’ve had to win games for four or five days now, and we need to win one more.

Chuck Finley, who started California’s late-season comeback by defeating the Mariners 2-0 in Seattle last Wednesday, allowed four hits and struck out nine in 7 1/3 innings Sunday. He limited the Athletics, who closed with a nine-game losing streak, to two runs, one a solo homer by Terry Steinbach in the second inning.

“Personally, I think this was a lot tougher than it was building that big lead we had,” Lachmann said. “To lose a big lead and come back, that’s tough. I take my hat off to them.’

Troy Percival relieved in the seventh with one out and a runner on first, and blanked Oakland the rest of the way.

“We never felt we were done,” said the Angels’ J.T. Snow. “We kept persevering. We knew our chances were thinning, but we were focused enough to just keep driving as long as it mattered.”

Mel Stottlemyre (14-7) was raked for six runs and 10 hits in four-plus innings. Tim Salmon, who also had three hits, drove in two runs as the Angels built a 6-1 lead by the fifth.

“The Angels battled the whole season and you have to give them credit,” Oakland slugger Mark McGwire said. “They just happened to have a slump in August and September; if they had it in May, nobody would be talking about it. But they made it through and they’ve got a playoff game, so the best of luck to them.”

Tony Phillips led off the game with a double and scored on Edmonds’ single. Edmonds came home on Snow’s single for a 2-0 lead.

Edmonds led off the third with a double and scored on Salmon’s single. Chili Davis doubled Salmon home, then eventually scored on rookie Garret Anderson’s sacrifice fly.

California built the lead to 6-1 in the fifth when Edmonds, who has scored a club record-tying 120 runs this year, singled and came around on Salmon’s double. Edmonds added a two-run triple in the eighth.

The Angels led the division by 11 games as late as Aug. 9, but then lost 24 of 30 as Seattle--13 games back on Aug. 5--caught them on Sept. 20, then went ahead.

The one-game showdown will be the first for the Angels in their 35-year history. They’ll be trying to return to the playoffs for the first time since 1986, when they came within one pitch of making it to the World Series, instead losing the playoffs to Boston.