Abbott Again Falters as Angels Are Beaten

The words come as hard as the victories for Angel pitcher Jim Abbott, who found himself in an all-too-familiar position Friday night--surrounded by reporters, explaining another rocky performance.

“There’s only so much you can say,” said Abbott, who gave up seven earned runs in the Angels’ 8-5 loss to the New York Yankees before 19,087 in Yankee Stadium.

“It comes down to winning games and performing well, creating confidence in your teammates that good things are going to happen when you pitch . . . and that hasn’t happened to this point.”

The Angels, who have lost nine of their last 10, are at the quarter-point of the 1996 season, and Abbott, who signed a three-year, $7.8-million contract last winter, has all of one victory, against the lowly Oakland Athletics on May 2.

Yes, those lowly A’s happen to be ahead of the last-place Angels in the American League West today. As for Abbott, who fell to 1-6 with a 5.81 earned-run average, he continued a disturbing pattern of falling apart in the middle innings after pitching well early.

The Angels, thanks to Randy Velarde’s bases-empty home run in the top of the fifth, took a 2-1 lead Friday night, and Abbott, with the help of spectacular diving catches by first baseman J.T. Snow and center fielder Jim Edmonds, gave up only one hit through four innings.

But Abbott crumbled in the fifth, after a controversial call by first-base umpire John Hirschbeck that negated a potential double play.

Tim Raines and Joe Girardi each hit two-out, RBI singles, and Paul O’Neill, who had a three-homer game against the Angels last season, followed with a three-run homer to right, as the Yankees took a 6-2 lead.

Abbott gave up a leadoff walk and Derek Jeter’s RBI triple in the sixth before being pulled for reliever Jeff Schmidt.

In nine starts, Abbott has a 2.67 ERA in innings one through three, a 7.12 ERA in innings four through six and a 15.19 ERA in innings seven through nine. He has been roughed up for two three-run innings, two four-run innings and Friday night’s five-run inning.

“You don’t get beat by one- and two-run innings, but you do get beat by the multi-run innings,” Manager Marcel Lachemann said. “And that’s what is happening.”

Lachemann thought the Angels should have been out of the fifth before the Yankees got rolling. Jim Leyritz led off with a broken bat single, and Gerald Williams hit into what appeared to be a 4-6-3 double play.

But Hirschbeck ruled that Snow pulled his foot off the bag before catching the relay and called Williams safe. Snow, the usually mild-mannered Abbott and Lachemann argued the call.

Jeter then singled and Matt Howard flied to right, which would have been the third out of the inning had the double play been awarded. But Raines, Girardi and O’Neill capitalized.

“I do not believe he pulled his foot off the bag,” Lachemann said. “He might have beaten the throw, but I thought his foot was on the bag. But we have to get through those things. We can’t let a call like that turn into a five-run inning.”

The Angels stirred in the eighth when Don Slaught and Tim Salmon singled and Jack Howell hit a pinch-hit, three-run homer, tying Joe Adcock (1966) and George Hendrick (1987) for the team record for pinch-hit homers in a season (three).

But Yankee reliever Mariano Rivera pitched a scoreless ninth, extending his scoreless inning streak to 22 2/3 innings, to preserve the victory for Andy Pettitte, who gave up four runs on seven hits in 7 1/3 innings.

“It seems like it’s coming down to one or two mistakes a night, and it’s excruciating,” Abbott said. “It comes down to stopping the tide, and I haven’t been able to do that . . . I don’t have many answers.”