Angels Stunned After Letting Game Slip Away

Ninth inning, runner on third, no outs, tie score, heart of the Angel order up, Troy Percival warming up in the bullpen . . . pitcher Chuck Finley had one thought as this scene unfolded in Fenway Park Tuesday night.

“I thought that was pretty much the game right there,” he said.

So did Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann. And so, probably, did the 22,450 Red Sox fans who have already rekindled their deep, personal relationship with disappointment in the first month of the 1996 season.

But Boston discovered it’s not the American League’s only underachiever. The Angels failed to score in the ninth, and the Red Sox went on to win, 4-3, on Jose Canseco’s RBI single off Shawn Boskie in the 12th inning.

John Valentin, whose two-run homer off reliever Mike James tied the score, 3-3, in the seventh, led off the 12th with a double to left. Mo Vaughn was intentionally walked, and Canseco, with right fielder Tim Salmon playing toward the gap, flared a single toward the line that scored Valentin.

Five Boston relievers, part of a supposedly shoddy Red Sox bullpen, held the Angels scoreless over the last six innings, but this game wasn’t so much won by Boston as it was lost by the Angels, who have now dropped eight of their last nine to fall 6 1/2 games behind the Texas Rangers.

“Not taking anything away from their pitcher, but we’ve got to get a ball to the outfield in that [ninth-inning] situation,” said Finley, who gave up two runs on four hits and six walks in 6 1/3 innings. “That pretty much killed us right there.

“I thought that run would definitely cross the plate . . . and I thought I’d be talking to you guys about an hour ago.”

The ugly, 4-hour 2-minute game featured 11 pitchers, 18 walks and 26 runners left on base. Both teams squandered scoring opportunities, but none was more glaring than the Angels’ ninth-inning rally, which started with Randy Velarde’s leadoff triple to right.

The Red Sox brought their infield in behind a reliever named Rich Garces, who had pitched all of 46 major league innings, and Jim Edmonds, who singled twice Tuesday, grounded to Vaughn at first.

Salmon, who had three hits in the game, struck out. Chili Davis was intentionally walked. Garces walked J.T. Snow on four pitches to load the bases, bringing up Garret Anderson, who knocked in the Angels’ three runs with a two-run double in the third and an RBI double in the fifth.

Garces threw two breaking balls on the outside corner for called strikes. Anderson fouled off an 0-2 pitch, then took strike three, another breaking pitch on the outside corner.

“We didn’t even need a base hit there, just the right kinds of outs,” Lachemann said. “The backbone of our offense was up, and we didn’t get the ball out of the infield. We didn’t execute very well offensively, and that will come back to haunt you.”

More tales from the whipped: Davis hit into a double play with two on in the first. Velarde struck out with the bases loaded and two out in the second. Don Slaught lined into a double play with the bases loaded in the third, Snow grounded into a double play with two on in the seventh and struck out with a runner on third in the 11th.

The Angels had 22 runners and scored three times. Boston starter Aaron Sele, who entered with a 1-3 record a bloated, 7.42 earned-run average, walked six, but the Angels let him off the ropes.

“Was the game lost in the first quarter or fourth quarter?” Salmon said. “We should have put Sele away early and we didn’t. The ninth inning wasn’t the only turning point of the game. We had lots of opportunities.”

Finley also managed to stay in the game despite control problems, but his leadoff walk to No. 9 batter Milt Cuyler in the seventh led to Boston’s first run on a double by Wil Cordero.

Lachemann replaced Finley with James, who hadn’t given up a run since April 25, a span covering 12 innings in eight appearances. That streak ended when Valentin blasted a two-run homer into the screen above the Green Monster in left to tie the game, 3-3.