Angels Get Into Habit of Winning

The Angels apparently have figured out a formula for success, so--after watching his teammates pull off five consecutive come-from-behind victories--right-hander Jason Grimsley wasted no time setting them up for No. 6 Friday night.

He hit Toronto’s first batter of the game, Jacob Brumfield, gave up a single to Domingo Cedeno, a run-scoring single to Carlos Delgado and then left a 0-and-2 curveball to Joe Carter over the plate and watched it disappear into the Angel bullpen.

Four runs, just about the right deficit to properly relax and motivate the Angel hitters.

A highly questionable and undoubtedly unintentional strategy maybe, but the scenario remained the same for the streaking Angels, who pulled to within 6 1/2 games of Texas with a 7-4 victory over the Blue Jays in front of 18,503 at Anaheim Stadium.

“I guess it’s not the ideal way to start, but really, the only bad pitches he made were hitting the guy and the ball to Carter,” Manager Marcel Lachemann said. “He tried to bounce a curveball and the only place it bounced was on the other side of the fence.”

But the Angels scored twice in the bottom of the first on an RBI double by Garret Anderson and a run-scoring single by Tim Salmon to halve the Toronto lead.

They pushed across two more in the second inning on a ground-rule double to right field by Randy Velarde, Don Slaught’s single to center and Anderson’s double off the wall in center.

They put up two more in the third inning when J.T. Snow walked and Tim Wallach slugged his seventh homer.

Velarde’s solo homer in the fifth gave the Angels a three-run lead.

“If we knew it would work every time, it would be our strategy,” Wallach said, smiling. “But it’s really good considering the stretch we’ve just been through. It’s nice to get some confidence that we can come back. It gives us the feeling that we’re never out of a game.”

Grimsley, who faced the entire Blue Jay lineup in the first inning, was one hit away from being pulled from the game, according to Lachemann. But Grimsley either decided to drop the sand-bagger routine or found the correct tempo, rhythm, arm angle or some other pitcher’s nuance.

He retired 20 of the next 23 Blue Jays before walking John Olerud and giving up a bloop single to right field by Shawn Green with two out in the eighth inning. Grimsley gave way to left-hander Chuck McElroy, who struck out pinch-hitter Ed Sprague, the potential tying run. Troy Percival struck out the side in the ninth inning for his 17th save.

“I felt like I had made some good pitches in the first inning, but part of being a big-league pitcher is knowing you’re going to pitch good and bad things will happen sometimes,” Grimsley said. “[After Carter’s homer], I just figured, ‘The slate’s clean, so let’s go.’ I just tried to keep grinding and stay away from trying to do anything extra.”

Grimsley, on a roller coaster lately, had a complete-game shutout against the Yankees May 28, followed by two starts in which he gave up five runs in less than seven innings of each.

This outing was almost as good as the 1-0 win over New York, once the first four Toronto batters had circled the bases.

“There have been a lot of factors involved in these comebacks,” Lachemann said, “from an offensive standpoint, of course, but also the pitching has been able to shut it down after we’ve fallen behind.

“Whether it’s been the starting pitching or the bullpen, they’ve been able to keep it close enough that when we scored, it meant something.”

The Angels also added a third factor Friday: defense. Darin Erstad, the No. 1 pick in the 1995 draft, made a spectacular catch in his big-league debut. Wallach made a nice backhand stab of a rocket off the bat of Alex Gonzalez in the fourth inning, and Velarde fielded a grounder by Brumfield in the seventh and spun 180 degrees to start a double play.