J.T. Gets Snowball Rolling With Leadoff Homer in Ninth

It was the home run few will remember this morning, but it was the one that got things started.

Before Gary DiSarcina hit his three-run homer to give the Angels a 5-4 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers, there was J.T. Snow battling to stay alive.

Snow led off the ninth inning, with the Angels seemingly sleepwalking through another loss. They trailed 4-1 and had but five hits against less-than-dominating pitchers. But Snow fouled off pitch after pitch, surviving with a 3-2 count, then homered to right.

“J.T. put some life into us,” DiSarcina said. “The whole mood in the dugout was different.”

The mood in the clubhouse was upbeat afterward and reporters crowded around DiSarcina. Snow took a long shower. It was not his night, but it was.

The Angels had been held in check by Tim VanEgmond and Randy Bones. They weren’t exactly on the staff’s A list.

VanEgmond was 0-1 with a 6.75 earned-run average entering the game. He was 0-2 with a 36.00 ERA at Anaheim Stadium. And he had replaced Bones in the rotation. Bones (6-11, 5.88 ERA) was demoted two weeks ago.

But those two had limited the Angels to five hits through eight innings. By the time the ninth began, many of the 16,841 in attendance were already in their cars.

It seemed like another lackluster Angel performance and another loss.

“The mood in the dugout was disappointment,” DiSarcina said. “We had wasted a good pitching performance [by starter Jason Grimsley].”

Then Snow went to bat.

“I was just thinking like a leadoff hitter,” said Snow, who is hitting .440 during the homestand. “I didn’t want to go up there swinging at the first pitch. I wanted to take a couple pitches and just try to get on base. I wanted to battle him.”

It turned into a lengthy one.

Bones got the count to 3-2 and Snow fouled off the next four pitches. He fouled off five in all.

“He threw a couple that I barely got a piece of,” said Snow, who was two for four. “They were close. But the last thing you want to do is go down looking in that situation.”

Snow hit the 11th pitch to the left of the foul pole for his 12th home run of the season. It was his first homer since July 6 and the fourth time this season that Snow has tied a game with a hit.

“J.T. got that inning off right,” Manager Marcel Lachemann said. “Sometimes you have to grind one out.”

It Snowballed from there.

Rex Hudler singled with one out. Garret Anderson singled. Then, with two outs, DiSarcina homered to left.

DiSarcina’s was the home run everyone wanted to talk about.

“How about that?” Lachemann said. “If you can’t get excited about that you might as well go home.”

The Angels did, eventually, with a rally that Snow started.

Angel infielder Hudler, walking across the field after the victory, remembered DiSarcina’s home run.

“That was a bomb,” Hudler shouted up at the press box.

And Snow’s?

“I loved it. That was outstanding,” Hudler yelled.