Everything Is a Problem These Days

As if the Angels weren’t struggling enough, they found another force working against them Thursday afternoon--third-base umpire Larry Barnett, who almost prevented Jack Howell from catching a pop fly in the third inning.

Minnesota’s Matt Lawton sent the pop beyond the third-base bag, and when Howell broke for the ball he ran right into Barnett. For the next few steps, it appeared the two were doing the tango.

Howell tried to get around Barnett, and Barnett tried to get out of Howell’s way, but they wound up in the same spot. Howell, realizing he wasn’t getting anywhere, then plowed through Barnett, reached around the umpire and made the blooper-reel catch.

“I felt like one of those big four-wheel-drive trucks in the mud,” said Howell, who hit a three-run homer in the seventh inning. “I was going for the ball and hit a brick wall. I could tell he was as surprised as me. . . . I started digging, and luckily he gave a little.”

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Right-hander Shawn Boskie was the Angels’ most effective and consistent starting pitcher for the first three months of the season but has since regressed, going 0-3 and giving up 21 earned runs in 16 innings of his last four starts.

Boskie (10-6) has been a traditionally poor closer, entering this season with a 9-22 record and 5.22 earned-run average in the months of July, August and September. His big mistake Thursday: A hanging curve on a 0-and-2 count to No. 9 hitter Pat Meares, who smacked it for a three-run home run in the second inning.

“I didn’t have good stuff and got raked around the yard,” Boskie said. “I’ve done bad so many times in the last part of the season that I know what it’s like. I don’t have a fear of that, just a determination to not let it happen again.”

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The Angels held a one-hour, players-only meeting after Wednesday night’s loss to the Twins, and two of the main topics, according to Boskie, were intensity and team spirit. “But it’s tough to have intensity when you’re down, 10-1, after five innings,” Boskie said. Said closer Troy Percival: “That stuff’s not going to change anything. We’ve got to change things on the field.” . . . Rich Becker’s double to left field in the first inning Thursday broke a string of 20 consecutive singles for the Twins, who beat the Angels in the first two games of the series without an extra-base hit. The Twins now trail Chicago by only 7 1/2 games in the wild-card race. . . . Tom Lawless, manager of the Angels’ Class-A Cedar Rapids, Iowa, team; Jerry Royster, a former Dodger who is coaching in the minor leagues; and Rick Dempsey, a former Oriole catcher who is scouting for the Colorado Rockies, have expressed an interest in the Angel manager job.