It's City of Lost Angels

It’s City of Lost Angels

By MIKE DiGIOVANNA

July 4, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Angels grew up in Orange County with a big league inferiority complex, for decades casting an envious eye at their World Series-winning, 3-million-fans-a-year-drawing, tradition-gushing neighbors to the north.

But given a chance to strike back against their rival Dodgers and strike a blow for Southern California’s perennial second-rate outfit, the Angels struck out--or, as they say in baseball, they took an 0-fer.

Hideo Nomo threw six shutout innings and the Dodgers broke open a fairly close game with a four-run eighth inning Thursday night en route to an 8-2 victory and a four-game sweep of their interleague series against the Angels.

The Dodgers have won three in a row and remained six games behind first-place San Francisco, but no one in their clubhouse was placing much emphasis on who they beat.

“We need to get a streak going, it didn’t matter who we were playing,” Dodger Manager Bill Russell said. “We just needed some wins . . . hopefully we can get something going now.”

An Anaheim Stadium sellout crowd of 35,295 saw Darin Erstad homer off reliever Antonio Osuna, pulling the Angels to within 4-1 in the seventh.

But the Dodgers pounded relievers Kevin Gross and Pep Harris for six hits, including RBI singles by Tripp Cromer, Roger Cedeno and Greg Gagne, in the eighth to pull away for a lopsided victory after three late-inning nail-biters against the Angels.

The Angels are still 5 1/2 games behind first-place Seattle entering a three-game series against the Mariners and ace Randy Johnson tonight.

“We’ve been disappointed the last two nights, but we’ll be up [today],” Angel Manager Terry Collins said. “This is another huge challenge. . . . If we play well and get it going before the All-Star break we’ll be in good shape.”

The Angels looked to be in decent shape early Thursday night, putting two runners on with one out against Nomo in both the first and second innings. But they failed to push across a run against Nomo (8-7) and, from the third through sixth, they failed to get a runner past first.

“It’s been said many times, but when you get good pitchers on the ropes early you’d better get to them,” Collins said. “If you don’t, they can put it together and put you away.”

Erstad snapped the shutout with his eighth homer in the seventh, and Dave Hollins and Jim Edmonds followed with a single and a walk. But Tim Salmon lined to left, and reliever Scott Radinsky got Garret Anderson to ground out on his first pitch to end the inning.

It appeared some of the hostilities from Wednesday night’s bench-clearing melee would carry over Thursday when Nomo zipped a 1-2 fastball past Salmon’s chin in the first inning and plunked Luis Alicea in the back with an off-speed pitch in the second.

Alicea cooled off after being escorted halfway to first by home-plate umpire Fieldin Culbreth, but when Angel starter Allen Watson drilled Cedeno on the hip with a fastball to open the fifth, Culbreth immediately issued warnings to both dugouts.

Collins took exception and got into a heated, face-to-face argument with the umpire, Collins’ head jerking back and forth like one of those bobbing-head dolls. That earned the manager his second ejection of the season.

Cedeno stole second after being hit by the pitch and scored on Gagne’s single to left, giving the Dodgers a 3-0 lead. Mike Piazza doubled to left, scoring Gagne to make the score 4-0.

Watson escaped the fifth but was pulled in favor of Gross, the former Dodger, after walking Todd Zeile to start the sixth. Watson, who gave up one run on nine hits in 14 innings of his two previous starts, victories over Texas and Seattle, lasted five innings, giving up four runs on four hits.

The left-hander’s error also led to an unearned run in the third. Billy Ashley and Tom Prince walked to open the inning, and Cromer dropped a sacrifice bunt attempt toward third.

Watson got his foot stuck in the turf and slipped while fielding the ball and made an ill-advised, off-balance throw that sailed well over Erstad’s head at first, allowing Ashley to score. Cedeno followed with a sacrifice fly to deep left, scoring Prince to make the score 2-0.

The Dodgers swept the four games from the Angels this season. A look at some of the key numbers:

BATTING AVERAGE

Dodgers: .304 (42 for 138)

Angels: .218 (29 for 133)

RUNS

Dodgers: 24

Angels: 14

HOME RUNS

Dodgers: 7

Angels: 3

EXTRA-BASE HITS

Dodgers: 11