Time Is Short, so Angels Win

The Angels entered Friday night’s game against the Seattle Mariners with a 10 1/2-game deficit in the American League West, but shortstop Gary DiSarcina said “it’s starting to seem like we’re 20 games out, because we’re getting toward the end of the line.”

DiSarcina didn’t say it, but the message was obvious: The Angels’ first-half battle cry--”It’s early, there’s no reason to panic”--no longer applies.

It’s getting late, there’s only 65 games left, and while they’re not panicking, the Angels realize if they don’t make a move soon, their season could quickly turn from extremely disappointing to downright embarrassing.

With that in mind, the Angels beat the Seattle Mariners, 9-4, before 23,332 in Anaheim Stadium, a victory that may not turn their season around but certainly was a deviation from the horrendous ball they’ve played for much of the past month.

“We’ve got to go on a pretty good roll,” manager Marcel Lachemann said. “We obviously can’t go .500 the rest of the way. We’ve got three teams to catch and they’re all very good teams, so we’ve got to play good baseball.”

The Angels equaled a season high with 18 hits; the bottom three in the Angel order--Garret Anderson, George Arias and Pat Borders--combined for seven hits and five runs, and Tim Salmon had three hits, including a two-run home run in the third inning.

But the biggest reason the Angels are 9 1/2 games behind the Texas Rangers is pitching. Angel starters had gone 3-9 with a 9.28 earned run average in the last 19 games, and the team had given up an average of six walks a game in that span.

But Jason Grimsley put an end to those trends--at least for one night--with a six-inning, eight-hit, four-run performance to improve to 5-6. Grimsley had only two strikeouts but walked just one and did not make the kind of glaring mistakes that have resulted in balls flying over outfield fences.

Grimsley tired in the seventh, giving up three consecutive singles and two runs, but left-hander Chuck McElroy came on to end the inning by retiring Joey Cora, Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey.

Mike James, who had given up runs in five of his last six appearances, then pitched a scoreless eighth and ninth, as the Angels beat the Mariners for only the second time in eight tries this season.

The Mariners had won nine of their last 11 games against the Angels dating back to last September, and they amassed 21 hits in a 15-3 victory Thursday night, a series of events that had DiSarcina wondering if the Angels would ever beat Seattle again.

“They have an outstanding lineup and you can’t pitch around anyone,” DiSarcina said of the Mariners. “They get a guy on first base and it’s like he’s in scoring position already.”

The Mariners took a 2-0 lead Friday night on Rodriguez’s infield single, Griffey’s bloop single and Edgar Martinez’s run-scoring fielder’s choice in the first inning, and Cora’s double and Griffey’s RBI bloop single in the third.

But the Angels flexed their muscles to score four runs in the third and used some well-placed hits and a break to add three runs in the fourth to take a 7-2 lead.

Arias singled to open the third, stole second and took third on Borders’ single. Randy Velarde singled to center for one run, and DiSarcina’s sacrifice moved the runners to second and third.

Jim Edmonds’ sacrifice fly scored Borders to make it 2-2, and Salmon followed with his 23rd homer of the season, a two-run shot to left off starter Bob Wells.

Anderson opened the fourth with a bloop single to left. Arias popped a ball up in foul territory behind first base, but Cora, the Seattle second baseman, dropped the ball after colliding with first baseman Paul Sorrento.

Arias, taking advantage of the second chance, lined a single to center, and Velarde hit another RBI single, this one a bloop to shallow right. DiSarcina’s sacrifice fly to left made it 7-2.