Angels Buried Amid Red Sox Power Surge

Jason Grimsley scratched his smooth scalp, but it wasn’t as if the Angel pitcher was perplexed about how his team suffered an embarrassing 17-6 loss to the Boston Red Sox Wednesday night.

“I should be docked a day’s pay for this, no doubt about it,” said Grimsley, whose response to his pathetic performance was to shave his head. “I didn’t do my job. We needed a lift, we fell behind early, the guys battled back, and I buried us.”

There were shovels aplenty, as the Angels lost for the eighth time in nine games. Reliever Mark Holzemer gave up three runs without retiring a batter. Shawn Boskie yielded three runs in 1 1/3 innings. Scott Sanderson was tagged for four runs in 2 1/3 innings.

The Red Sox had a season-high 17 hits and 35 total bases and scored in every inning but the eighth, falling just short of becoming the fifth team in American League history to score in all eight innings of a home victory.

Only Dennis Springer’s shutout inning prevented Boston from joining the 1903 Red Sox, 1923 Cleveland Indians, 1939 New York Yankees and 1949 Chicago White Sox in the record books.

“Is that what you call a stopper?” Manager Marcel Lachemann said with a smirk. “I didn’t realize he had done that fine of a job.”

Neither did Springer.

“Holy cow, that’s nothing to be proud of,” Springer said. “But it beats the alternative.”

Every Boston starter had at least one hit and one run. First baseman Mo Vaughn hit a pair of two-run homers, including a fourth-inning blast off Holzemer that carried to the center-field bleachers above the 420-foot sign in Fenway Park.

Mike Stanley hit a three-run homer in the first inning and had four RBIs, Jose Canseco hit a third-inning homer off Grimsley that must have landed somewhere near the Citgo sign beyond the Green Monster in left-center, and Troy O’Leary had three doubles and two RBIs.

It was a tag-team debacle for the Angel pitching staff, but Grimsley set the tone, giving up seven runs on seven hits in 3 1/3 innings, including two in the bottom of the fourth after the Angels came back to tie the game, 5-5, in the top of the fourth.

Grimsley said the high fastball Canseco hit for his homer “might have been the worst pitch of my career.”

Grimsley gave up two singles to start the fourth before yielding to Holzemer, who showed the touch of an arsonist, giving up John Valentin’s two-run double and Vaughn’s two-run homer.

The five-run fourth gave Boston a 10-5 lead, and the Red Sox blew the Angels away with three runs in the fifth and sixth innings.

“They have one of the scariest lineups in baseball, but I gave them great pitches to hit,” Grimsley said. “I’ll get in a huge fight before I let that happen again. I’ve had control problems in the past, and now I’m around the plate. But I’ve got to start pitching inside more and dropping a few guys.”

Angel starters haven’t won a game since May 5, the day Mark Langston injured his knee, and in the last nine games, Angel pitchers have surrendered 64 runs (50 earned) on 103 hits, including 16 homers, in 88 innings.

The other end of the battery was shaky Wednesday night too. With runners on second and third in the fourth inning, Holzemer got O’Leary, the first batter he faced, to ground a ball back to the box.

Holzemer caught Tim Naehring in a rundown between third and home, but Naehring ducked under catcher Jorge Fabregas’ bare-handed tag attempt and scored.

Fabregas was trying to tag Naehring quickly and throw to third to cut down Wil Cordero. But instead of a double play, the Red Sox had two runners on for both Valentin and Vaughn, who came through with clutch hits.

“I feel bad for the pitching staff, and I apologized to Lach,” Fabregas said. “We’re trying so hard to win a game, and a stupid play like that doesn’t help.”

The play was another lowlight of Boston’s two-game sweep of the Angels, which left Lachemann in a sour mood. Asked what he was going to do during today’s off day in New York, Lachemann said: “Try not to get mugged.”