Angels Are Swept Out of Detroit

The lowly Detroit Tigers completed a three-game sweep of the Angels with Thursday’s 13-5 victory, and the Sultans of Schizo--”We’re a good team. No, we’re a bad team”--slipped back into their self-analysis mode in Tiger Stadium’s visiting clubhouse.

Tuesday, the Angels had a communication problem. Thursday, it was a motivation problem, with Manager Marcel Lachemann firing the opening salvo after a three-game wipeout in which the Tigers, with the worst record in baseball, pounded the Angels for 10 homers and 35 runs.

“It’s my job to try to motivate this team, but right now that’s a zero,” Lachemann said after the Cecil Fielder-less Tigers took an 11-0 lead against Shawn Boskie, newly acquired Greg Gohr and Jason Grimsley.

“We’re not getting after it. We’re not getting it done. And when I say we, that’s all of us, every single one.”

The inconsistent Angels seem to slip into a funk after every winning streak. The Angels were 6-3 on their last home stand and showed signs they might get back into the divisional race, but once again they have a double-digit deficit behind the Texas Rangers in the American League West.

“I can’t do this much longer,” Lachemann said. “I can’t sit here and watch this. I don’t know how they can sit and watch this. We have to turn it around somehow.”

What more can Lachemann do?

“I don’t think the manager has to be like Knute Rockne to motivate the team,” shortstop Gary DiSarcina said. “You’re cashing two pretty good paychecks a month; you’ve got to do the job. You play 162 games, how can you expect the manager to motivate you on a daily basis? That’s asking a lot.”

Though the Angels seem to show as much fight as Peter McNeeley some days, center fielder Jim Edmonds says Lachemann has done a good job of motivating the team.

“If we don’t go out and play the way we should play, we should be fired, not the manager,” Edmonds said. “Guys aren’t pitching and playing like they’re supposed to. Each guy on this team has to kick himself in the butt.”

Added first baseman J.T. Snow: “I don’t think the manager can give a big Win-One-for-the-Gipper speech and we’re going to win 10 in a row. Each guy has to dig down deep, put everything else aside and figure out what he can do, how he can contribute.”

Designated hitter Chili Davis agreed, saying motivation must come from within.

“There are some managers who make you not like them, who you won’t play for, but I haven’t run into a manager I dislike enough to do that,” he said. “I play on pride, and all the motivation I need is to see my name in the lineup every day.

“Just being here should be motivation enough, so I disagree with him taking the blame. He can’t hit for us, field for us or pitch for us.”

Just about everyone else has pitched for the Angels. Gohr, who replaced Boskie in the sixth inning, became the 24th pitcher they have used, tying a team record set in 1993.

It was a debut Gohr won’t want to remember. The right-hander, acquired from the Tigers for infielder Damion Easley on Wednesday night, gave up two singles, two walks and Tony Clark’s grand slam.

“That was ugly,” Gohr said. “It was not the kind of first impression you want to make.”

Neither was Boskie’s. The starter gave up solo home runs to Mark Lewis in the first inning and Mark Parent in the fourth. The Tigers added two runs in the fifth, and Boskie’s day ended with Andujar Cedeno’s two-run homer in the sixth.

“That was embarrassing,” Boskie said. “I was brutal.”

The Angels scored five runs in the seventh inning, two on rookie catcher Todd Greene’s first big league home run, to trim the deficit to 11-5, but Tiger right-hander Brian Williams finished a 10-hit victory to improve to 3-8.

The rally, Davis said, is a sign that Angels still care.

“If I thought there was a player on this team who didn’t [care], I would go right to that player and tell him,” Davis said. “That would be unfair to the team, to themselves and to the organization. We all care so much. . . . It doesn’t always look like it, but sometimes when you care too much, you overdo things and you get tense.

“But you can’t manage, coach or play this game worried about your job. You just have to go out and do it.”