Down and Out in Kingdome : Angels: Mariners get a good break from Sojo and some great pitching from Johnson for 9-1 victory and first AL West title.

Angel pitcher Mark Langston shattered Luis Sojo’s bat, but it was the Angels’ most promising season in years that ended up in pieces, strewn about the Kingdome carpet like the confetti and streamers that were left in the wake of the Mariners’ division-clinching celebration Monday afternoon.

Sojo’s quirky, bases-loaded double down the right-field line in the seventh inning broke open a one-run game, propelling the Mariners to a 9-1 victory over the Angels and their first American League West championship, and leaving Langston flat on his back at home plate, staring at the Kingdome roof and wondering what else could go wrong.

With a crowd of 52,356 on its feet, and the roar simply deafening, Seattle ace Randy Johnson struck out Tim Salmon to end the one-game playoff, completing the third-greatest comeback in baseball history for the Mariners and one of the game’s biggest collapses for the Angels.

Johnson, perfect through 5 2/3 innings on his way to a three-hitter and 12 strikeouts, thrust his arms into the air after the final pitch, and made a nice catch of catcher Dan Wilson, who leaped into his arms.

Fans poured onto the field--some kissed home plate, some filled their pockets with dirt from the infield cutouts--and the Mariners fought their way through the mob for some clubhouse revelry before winging off to New York to open the AL division playoffs against the Yankees tonight.

Some Angels retreated to their own clubhouse, unable to bear the sight of a celebration they fully expected to experience this year, but some made a point of remaining on the bench for the entire party.

“I looked around and made sure some of our young players were out there watching, because that’s what it’s all about,” said third baseman Tony Phillips, whose ninth-inning homer broke up Johnson’s shutout. “You see someone take the prize, and it really hurts, but it makes you realize how important it is.”

Two months ago Monday, the Mariners were 13 games behind the Angels, and Manager Lou Piniella had all but conceded the division to the Angels, saying his sights were set on the wild-card race.

But the Mariners went 35-19 over the last 54 games, while the Angels, the scourge of the league after the All-Star break, fell apart, losing 29 of their last 43 games.

An Angel lead that peaked at 11 games on Aug. 9 had turned into a three-game deficit by last Tuesday, and it took a season-ending, five-game Angel win streak and two Seattle losses to Texas over the weekend to force Monday’s winner-take-all showdown.

It was a draw through four innings, as Langston, the former Mariner who was traded to Montreal for Johnson and two other players in 1989, kept the Angels in the game against the 6-foot-10 Seattle ace, who finished with an 18-2 record and a major league-leading 294 strikeouts.

A walk, a fielder’s choice, a single by Joey Cora and Vince Coleman’s RBI single to left gave Seattle a 1-0 lead in the fifth, but then irony swooped in and crushed the Angels in the seventh.

Langston, a six-time Gold Glove winner, misplayed a bunt and had a throwing error, and J.T. Snow, one of the league’s best-fielding first basemen, couldn’t handle a grounder off the bat of Sojo, an Angel castoff who was deemed too slow and too weak a hitter to remain in the organization.

Mike Blowers opened the seventh with a single, and Langston dropped Tino Martinez’s sacrifice bunt, eliminating any chance of cutting down Blowers at second.

But when Langston looked to first, second baseman Rex Hudler, who was covering the bag, was not in position to receive the throw. The result? Langston held the ball, and the Mariners had two runners on.

Wilson bunted the runners up, but Langston hit Cora, the No. 9 hitter, with a 1-2 pitch. Coleman lined out to Salmon, who made a sliding catch of the ball and threw home in time to prevent Blowers from tagging up, a huge momentum shift toward the Angels.

Sojo swung it back toward the Mariners with his first swing, slapping a broken-bat grounder to the right side that somehow slipped by Snow on his backhand side and rolled into the Angel bullpen area.

“I don’t know if it hit a seam or had a cue-ball effect, but I couldn’t believe I didn’t come up with that ball,” Snow said. “That’s a play I should make.”

Two runners scored, and Langston, for some reason, cut off Tim Salmon’s throw, had trouble getting the ball out of his mitt and threw wildly past catcher Andy Allanson as Cora scored.

Sojo never stopped around third and slid into home just ahead of Allanson’s throw from the backstop for a 5-0 lead. Langston was upended on the play and collapsed onto his back, where he remained for about 10 seconds as the crowd went wild.

“The whole game flashed before my eyes right there,” Langston said.

Seattle added four insurance runs in the eighth off the underbelly of the Angel bullpen, and the Mariners were soon celebrating their first division title in the 19-year history of the franchise.

“It was hard to watch them celebrate when that should have been us,” Langston said. “But they did it in the game that counted and we didn’t. We had a huge lead and let it slip through our hands.”