Angels Find Comfort and Victory Follows

The Angels, frozen bats and all, went through the defrost cycle Tuesday night, their offense warming to 78-degree temperatures in a 7-3 victory over the Athletics before 7,154 in the Oakland Coliseum.

After winning only one of five games in absolutely dismal weather in Milwaukee and Chicago, the Angels were greeted in Oakland on Tuesday by an old familiar friend: the sun.

The summer-like evening seemed to put the Angels, who snapped a four-game losing streak, in a brighter mood. It also let them take batting practice for only the second time in the past six days.

“It was nice not having to bundle up out there,” shortstop Gary DiSarcina said. “It gets old waking up in your hotel room every day, opening up the curtains and thinking, ‘There’s no way we’re going to play today.’

“You go to the park, there’s no batting practice, the tarpaulin is on the field. . . . There’s always a chance the game can be canceled, and that makes it hard to prepare for.”

The Angels seemed more than ready for Oakland starter Ariel Prieto, jumping on the right-hander for seven runs on 10 hits in four innings. All 11 of the Angels’ hits came in the first five innings.

Angel starter Mark Langston (2-1) went seven innings, giving up eight hits and striking out seven, to gain the victory.

Reliever Lee Smith pitched the ninth with a four-run lead and gave the Angels a slight scare, walking Allen Battle on four pitches and sending a wild pitch to the backstop.

Troy Percival, who had eight saves while Smith recovered from his knee injury, immediately began warming up, but Smith struck out Geronimo Berroa and retired Torey Lovullo (fly ball) and Terry Steinbach (ground ball) to end a game in which the Angels experienced an offensive renaissance.

The Angels hit two home runs in the previous five games; they hit three Tuesday night. They scored five runs in three losses to the Chicago White Sox in Comiskey Park; they had five runs by the fourth inning Tuesday night.

Center fielder Jim Edmonds snapped an 0-for-10 skid with three hits, including a two-run home run to center field in the fifth inning. Edmonds also doubled and scored in the first and singled and scored in the third.

Right fielder Tim Salmon doubled in a run in the third for his first RBI in five games and only his sixth extra-base hit of the season.

Left fielder Garret Anderson, who was three for 18 on the trip, hit his first home run since April 10, a liner to right-center field in the fourth inning that caromed off a scaffold, part of the ongoing construction to enclose the Coliseum for the Oakland Raiders.

Designated hitter Chili Davis, one of the few Angels to avoid a slump for much of April, set the tone for the evening with a towering two-run homer to right field off Prieto in the first inning.

Even DiSarcina, hitless in his last 10 at-bats and owner of a .182 average entering the game, contributed with a single in the fourth.

“We were just happy to be back in California,” said Edmonds, who has eight homers and 23 RBIs. “It was just miserable in Chicago, and the whole team was excited to be back in warm weather. It really helped a lot.”

Oakland scored twice in the fifth on Ernie Young’s double, Battle’s single, Berroa’s RBI groundout and Mark McGwire’s RBI single.

But after Scott Brosius’ double, Langston struck out Jason Giambi with runners on second and third to end the inning. The left-hander also helped himself by picking off Battle and striking out Steinbach with two men on in the first.

Mark Eichhorn relieved Langston in the eighth but gave up a run on three hits. He was relieved by Mike James, who struck out pinch-hitter Brent Gates and retired Phil Plantier on a fly ball to end the inning.

“It’s nice to get back in the warm weather. You’re body just feels loose,” Langston said. “But the run support was the real difference in the game. It took a lot of pressure off us and put a lot on them.”