Angels Left Out in Cold in 4-3 Loss

A cold and unforgiving Midwest sky played misty for the Angels and the Chicago White Sox on Monday night, turning Comiskey Park into a frosty, foggy mess.

White Sox right fielder Danny Tartabull lost a fly ball in the haze, and it dropped for a two-base error. Angel second baseman Randy Velarde tried turning a double play but slipped on a bag he described as “frozen solid.”

There were plenty of blunders, which was expected. It rained all day and was 42 degrees and breezy at game time.

But for all the physical obstacles, it was a mental mistake that was most costly in the Angels’ 4-3 loss before a paid crowd of 12,949, which was about 10,000 more than actually showed up.

After leading off the fifth with a single, Rex Hudler tried to advance to third on Garret Anderson’s single to left but was thrown out by White Sox outfielder Tony Phillips.

J.T. Snow followed with a single, which moved Anderson to third and would have scored Hudler, and Gary DiSarcina added a run-scoring groundout. But because of Hudler’s gaffe, the Angels scored only one run in the inning, the margin of defeat in their fourth consecutive loss.

“The rule of thumb is you don’t make the first out of an inning at third base,” Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann said. “I know Rex was trying to fire the team up, but you only do that when there’s some degree of certainty. You can’t just run and hope they don’t throw the ball straight. This is the major leagues. That’s asking too much.”

Hudler, who had three hits, felt the combination of a wet field and Phillips’ average throwing arm added up to a good gamble.

“I was trying to make something happen--that’s the way I play,” Hudler said. “I know Tony doesn’t throw very well, but he made a good throw on that play.”

Hudler’s aggressive base running didn’t seem to rub off on his teammates, who were, at times, timid at the plate. Though the Angels had 11 hits, they also struck out 11 times, five times looking.

White Sox left-hander Wilson Alvarez gave up three runs on nine hits--one of them Velarde’s two-run triple in the seventh that center fielder Darren Lewis could have caught but dropped on the warning track--to earn the victory, Chicago’s seventh in a row. Jason Grimsley, who gave up four runs on eight hits and six walks in 5 2/3 innings, got the loss.

Closer Roberto Hernandez, after giving up a lead-off single to Snow in the ninth, struck out DiSarcina, Velarde and pinch-hitter Mike Aldrete to earn his major league-leading ninth save.

But give the weather an assist. When Velarde couldn’t turn that double play in the second, it opened the door for the White Sox to score a run on Ozzie Guillen’s two-out single.

“That was a very easy double play,” Velarde said. “But when I slipped it threw me all out of sync. The field was just brutal.”

Catcher Don Slaught had a particularly tough time, missing a Grimsley pitch that was only inches outside the strike zone for a passed ball that allowed Phillips to score in the fifth. Robin Ventura’s RBI double later in the inning gave the White Sox a 3-1 lead.

Slaught also had trouble getting the ball out of his glove on a sixth- inning pitchout and couldn’t throw out Lewis at second. Guillen later stole second without drawing a throw and scored on Ray Durham’s RBI single to make it 4-1.

“I just missed it, and that cost us big-time,” Slaught said of the passed ball. “That was ugly.”

So was the mood in the Angel clubhouse before the game. The White Sox postponed Friday night’s game five hours before it was supposed to start--cold weather was the official reason; a Chicago Bull playoff game that would have cut deeply into the baseball gate was the unofficial reason.

As it turned out, the weather Friday night--chilly but dry--was better than it was for the other three games the Angels and White Sox played.

“It’s unfair to the players, and it was unfair to the people who wanted to come to Friday’s game,” Angel designated hitter Chili Davis said. “It was a totally selfish decision.”

Said Angel pitcher Mark Langston: “It’s a joke.”