Edmonds’ Return Is Healing for Angels

He was gone so long they started making cracks about losing his starting spot in center field forever.

Hey, Jim Edmonds, ever heard of Wally Pipp?

Well, Edmonds had and he would laugh whenever someone mentioned the name.

Inside, Edmonds was dying. He sat in the bullpen one hot afternoon. Grabbed a seat in the press box on another night.

He had no choice but to find distractions. A sprained ligament in his right thumb sidelined him for more than a month.

Meanwhile, rookie Darin Erstad filled in with an eye-popping, confident style of play in center field.

The Angels’ sagging fortunes were not tied to Edmonds’ absence, though. Erstad didn’t have the power to rival Edmonds, perhaps, but he was sound in the field and speedy on the basepaths.

To be sure, the Angels missed Edmonds’ punch at the plate and his fearless play in the field. Edmonds, activated last Thursday, showed a bit of both skills Monday, leading the Angels to a 1-0 victory over the Detroit Tigers at Anaheim Stadium.

A bases-empty home run in the third inning, Edmonds’ 15th this season, proved to be all the offense the Angels’ needed. His long run and leaping catch on Cecil Fielder’s drive to the left-center field fence in the fourth certainly was the game’s defensive highlight.

“Chuck shut them out, but Jimmy had a lot to do with it,” Manager Marcel Lachemann said of Edmonds’ assist in left-hander Chuck Finley’s 10th victory. “He’s an all-star player [in 1995], and he showed why today.”

Edmonds’ numbers are off from his breakthrough season last year and injuries have been the main reason.

Edmonds also spent time on the DL with strained stomach and groin muscles. He was activated June 10, then injured his thumb foolishly on June 11 attempting to knock the ball from the glove of Kansas City pitcher Jeff Granger after hitting a slow roller up the first-base line.

He had never been on the DL before this season and he’s not eager to go back. Restless though he was, he also was not willing to return too quickly.

“That was the whole reason for being at Lake Elsinore,” he said of his five-game rehabilitation assignment at the Angels’ Class-A affiliate. “I didn’t want to come back and hinder this team. I wanted to be ready.”

Edmonds proved he was sound enough to play again, homering in his first game back.

“Sometimes it still hurts,” Edmonds said. “Swinging and missing hurts. Swinging and fouling it off hurts. Making contact doesn’t usually hurt.”

Edmonds’ one-out homer on a 3-and-2 pitch from Detroit starter Omar Olivares was one of his typical shots, a towering drive that landed some 20 feet beyond the left-center field wall.

In the fourth, he caught up with Fielder’s blast near the same spot, crashing into the fence in another familiar sight.

The Angels then turned the catch into a double play, appealing to second base umpire Joe Brinkman that Detroit’s Mark Lewis left second early in tagging up and taking third.

In fact, Lewis never went back to the bag. He just took off for third after Edmonds’ catch.

Edmonds also caught Fielder’s drive to the 386-foot sign in right-center to lead off the ninth against closer Troy Percival.

“I was sure he didn’t hit those balls that well,” Edmonds said when asked whether he thought either were hit well enough to go out. “He can hit the ball out of any ballpark and you usually can tell [if it’s gone].”