Angels Throw Away Chance to Close Gap

A speedy runner at second base, a grounder into no-man’s land, a moment’s hesitation, a wild throw and, voila, another tough loss for the Angels at Yankee Stadium.

Is this any way to begin a playoff drive?

No, as the Angels proved convincingly Wednesday during a 5-4 loss to the Yankees in front of 26,750.

“One-run games make or break a season,” Yankee right fielder Paul O’Neill said at game’s end. “The close games can put you over the top.”

Or they can leave you bitter and disappointed come October. The Angels have been there and done that as recently as 1995.

With a chance to continue their torrid play and trim the gap on the Yankees, their wild-card rivals, the Angels have flopped in the first two games of this 11-game trip to New York, Boston and Cleveland.

Tuesday, the Angels never were in contention and were routed, 9-2.

Wednesday, they rallied from a four-run deficit only to watch the game slip away in the ninth inning.

The Yankees’ Chad Curtis, the Angels’ starting center fielder for three seasons, led off the ninth with a double into the left-field corner against reliever Shigetoshi Hasegawa.

Yankee catcher Jorge Posada followed with a weak grounder in the hole between first and second. First baseman Darin Erstad tried to field the ball but couldn’t and was too far off the bag to take a throw.

Second baseman Luis Alicea got to the ball but uncorked a bad throw to Hasegawa, who had hesitated and was a step late covering first base.

Meanwhile, Curtis scored easily from second base.

“It’s a heartbreaker,” Alicea said. “I make that throw every day. It wasn’t a long throw. It just slipped.”

Hasegawa (2-5) waved off reporters after the game, so it was impossible to know precisely what he was thinking on the play.

“It’s a game of execution and sometimes you don’t execute,” Manager Terry Collins said. “We didn’t execute, and we got beat.”

The Angels made several sound defensive plays that helped keep them in striking distance after the Yankees built a 4-0 lead in the third inning.

Angel outfielders hit the cutoff man twice in the third to get runners trying to take an extra base. Otherwise the Yankees might have put the game out of reach, as they had in Tuesday’s victory.

In the fourth, center fielder Jim Edmonds made a sensational catch while crashing into the fence to take away extra bases from Curtis to keep the deficit from growing.

Yankee starter Dwight Gooden held the Angels scoreless until tiring in the sixth. Edmonds’ run-scoring single cut the deficit to 4-1 and ended an 0-for-19 rut. It also prompted New York Manager Joe Torre to replace Gooden with right-handed reliever Ramiro Mendoza.

Tim Salmon then hit the first pitch Mendoza delivered over the left-field fence for a three-run homer that tied the score.

“It was great to get a [homer] like that,” starting pitcher Allen Watson said. “It was a big lift. We had the momentum going into the eighth and ninth. The bullpen did a great job.”

But the Angels stalled against reliever Jeff Nelson (3-5). With former Yankee catcher Jim Leyritz at bat and two on and two out in the eighth, Torre summoned Nelson to halt the threat. Nelson got Leyritz to ground out to end the inning.

“The biggest at-bat was Leyritz against Nelson,” Collins said. “Nelson made a couple of good pitches and got him. We didn’t get a lot of opportunities. We didn’t exactly pour the runners on base today.”

Nelson then pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to extend his streak to 22 consecutive batters retired. Alicea and Hasegawa couldn’t make the play in the ninth and the Angels lost for only the third time in 15 games.

“Now we have a chance to sweep a pretty good team,” said O’Neill, who extended his hitting streak to career-best-tying 14 consecutive games with a run-scoring single in the third. “We’ve got a pretty good team, but we’ve got to win any way possible.”