Angels Suspend Phillips

They call this place Charm City, but the Angels aren’t buying it. They left town Monday night feeling hexed, as if someone had cast an evil spell over their gloves in a 2-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles before 47,804 in Camden Yards.

One grounder caromed off third baseman Dave Hollins’ glove for an error; another deflected off first baseman Darin Erstad’s glove for an error. The miscues led to the Orioles’ tie-breaking run in the ninth inning and a three-game sweep of the Angels, who lost each game by one run.

“They have a great team, but we played them inning for inning, pitch for pitch, for three straight nights,” Angel Manager Terry Collins said. “We lost three close games, but we can play with these guys.”

Knuckleballer Dennis Springer outlasted Baltimore ace Mike Mussina, taking a seven-hitter into the ninth while Mussina, one of baseball’s best pitchers, left after giving up one run on seven hits in 7 2/3 innings.

But with one out in the ninth, Hollins couldn’t handle Jeffrey Hammonds’ grounder to his left. The ball bounced off his glove and to shortstop Gary DiSarcina, whose throw to first was late.

Chris Hoiles then placed a perfect hit-and-run single through the vacated second-base hole, advancing Hammonds to third. Oriole Manager Davey Johnson sent Harold Baines up to hit for Mike Bordick, and Collins countered with left-handed reliever Mike Holtz.

Baines ripped a grounder down the first-base line, but when Erstad went to his knees to block the ball, it bounced off him and dribbled into foul territory, allowing Hammonds to score.

Erstad was behind the bag on the play, and Hammonds is Baltimore’s fastest runner, but when asked if Erstad would have had a shot at Hammonds at the plate had he fielded the ball cleanly, Collins said, “Absolutely.”

Defensive execution wasn’t the Angels’ only weakness Monday. After Rickey Henderson’s double and Erstad’s RBI single tied the score, 1-1, in the sixth inning, the Angels failed to score after Jim Edmonds led off the seventh and Erstad led off the eighth with doubles.

Todd Greene, trying to advance Edmonds with a grounder to the right side, could do no better than a foul ball. Greene eventually struck out, and DiSarcina and Henderson grounded out to end the seventh.

Erstad was stranded in the eighth when Hollins, batting left-handed, lined to short, and Tim Salmon and Garret Anderson struck out, the latter against left-handed reliever Arthur Rhodes.

“No question,” Collins said, “we need to get those guys over [to third base].”

Why not bunt Greene or Hollins? Because Greene is a power hitter who has the ability to hit to the right side, and Hollins is not as good a bunter from the left side as he is from the right.

“People think it’s easy to bunt, but not against a guy throwing 94 mph,” Collins said. “I can probably count on one hand the number of times Greene has bunted this year. What you’re asking a guy to do [by bunting] is fail. I thought he had a better shot hitting to the right side.”

The Orioles took a 1-0 lead in the third when B.J. Surhoff, who was eight for 13 with seven RBIs in the series, tripled and scored on Geronimo Berroa’s sacrifice fly.

Springer, who shut out the Orioles in Camden Yards last Aug. 25, pitched his way out of first- and second-inning jams, striking out Berroa and getting Rafael Palmeiro to line out with runners on second and third in the first and striking out Brady Anderson with two on to end the second.

The right-hander didn’t baffle the Orioles--he struck out only three--but he had Baltimore fans abuzz with his floaters, especially a 46-mph, slow-pitch-softball-like delivery to Hammonds in the second and a 45-mph pitch behind Berroa’s head in the eighth.

Springer has had remarkable success against the Orioles, with a 2-3 career record and 2.10 earned-run average in six games against them, and the slower the 32-year-old has thrown his knuckler in recent weeks, the better the results.

Asked if the velocity of his pitches would soon equal his age, Springer joked, “In a couple of years.”