Royals Complete Sweep

The game was lost and Angel starter Jason Grimsley knew precisely why. It was his fault, no question about it, and he wasn’t about to hold back his feelings.

Grimsley seethed as reporters gathered around his locker stall after the Angels’ 8-2 loss to the Kansas City Royals, who completed a four-game sweep Thursday night before 15,302 at Anaheim Stadium.

“It’s embarrassing to get beat like that,” said Grimsley, who gave up six runs (four earned) and six hits in 5 1/3 innings.

“It doesn’t sit right with you. They’ve got some guys that can play baseball, but they’re not the ’27 Yankees. To pitch like that is embarrassing. I made pitches people at any level could hit. You can’t do that here.”

What angered Grimsley most was that he abandoned his curveball in favor of fastballs. He has a quality curveball, but for some reason he could not explain, he didn’t use it Thursday.

“I’ve got more than one pitch and I didn’t use it,” said Grimsley, who took a no-hitter into the seventh inning of his last start. “It was a big brain cramp. I just didn’t use [the curve]. It was stupid on my part to not use it. It’s embarrassing. I was constantly throwing pitches they could put the bat on.”

Suddenly, there seems to be chaos all around Anaheim Stadium, where the Angels find themselves with too many closers, not enough starters and the inability to string together timely hits.

“They outplayed us, outhustled us and outmanaged us,” Manager Marcel Lachemann said. “We’ve got to get ourselves together. We can’t go six games good, four bad. We’ve got to clean it up.”

After the game, the Angels optioned reliever Ben VanRyn to triple-A Vancouver and recalled knuckleballer Dennis Springer, who will start tonight against Cleveland.

Grimsley, 2-2 with a 2.96 earned-run average, received little support at the plate or in the field. Three errors led to two runs in the first three innings and the Royals handled Grimsley with ease.

With Mark Langston, the Angels’ most effective starter, expected to be sidelined up to two months after undergoing knee surgery Wednesday, the club is counting on help from Grimsley.

It didn’t happen Thursday.

The Angels also had a lackluster offensive night. The lowlights included designated hitter Chili Davis attempting to bunt for a hit with one out, nobody on and the Angels down, 6-2, in the sixth inning.

The Royals, who have the league’s second-lowest batting average, outhit the Angels, 43-34, in the four-game series.

Was this any way to prepare to host the AL champion Indians for three games starting tonight?

“I don’t see where you have to get anyone special in town to play well,” Lachemann said. “We haven’t played well the last four games. Maybe that’s to Kansas City’s credit, but we’ve got to play better than that.”

The Royals picked their spots, stole bases, moved runners along, played superb defense, then landed an overhand right when necessary.

Thursday, with 5-foot-7 singles hitter Bip Roberts batting cleanup, it happened this way:

Kansas City took advantage of shabby fielding and throwing to score unearned runs in the second and third innings and give Mark Gubicza a 2-0 lead.

Gubicza (3-4) held the Angels to two singles until the fifth. By then, the lead had grown to 5-0 thanks to Sal Fasano’s first major league home run--a three-run shot.