Angel Bullpen Discovers That Sinking Feeling

Now Terry Collins knows how Lou Piniella feels. While the Angel bullpen hasn’t tormented Collins nearly to the extent the Seattle bullpen has tortured Piniella, it certainly left the Angel manager exasperated Thursday night.

The usually reliable Mike Holtz gave up a game-tying, three-run home run to Tony Clark in the eighth inning, and Pep Harris gave up the winning run in the bottom of the 11th, as the Detroit Tigers came back to defeat the Angels, 5-4, before 9,445 in Tiger Stadium.

The Angels, who have lost 13 of 19 games, have blown bigger leads this season--twice, opponents erased six-run deficits to defeat them--but this may have been their most crushing loss, considering it dropped them three games behind the Mariners with 22 games left and rendered Tim Salmon’s two-homer game meaningless.

“Everything is on the line now, it’s September,” Holtz said amid dead silence in the clubhouse. “That’s what makes this so hard. It’s a tough feeling. My job is to set up Troy [Percival], and the bottom line is I didn’t do my job.”

Victory appeared within the Angels’ grasp when Ken Hill, who gave up one run and three hits in seven innings for his second consecutive strong performance, turned the game over to Holtz with a 4-1 lead in the eighth.

Holtz has been the Angels most consistent reliever, taking a 1.63 earned-run average into Thursday’s game. The left-hander had given up an earned run in only six of 56 appearances, and left-handers were batting .130 against him.

But Tiger second baseman Damion Easley, the former Angel, lined a single to center and Bobby Higginson, after fouling off several two-strike pitches, blooped a single to right, only the 11th hit by a left-hander off Holtz this season.

Collins kept Holtz in to face Clark so the switch-hitter would bat from the right side--21 of Clark’s 29 home runs were from the left side. It was a sound strategy, but it backfired when Clark blasted a 2-and-2 pitch into the upper deck in left for his 30th homer and a 4-4 tie. It was only Clark’s second homer from the right side since May 23.

“I left a breaking ball up in the zone, and if you do that the big boys are going to get it, and it’s going to leave the park,” Holtz said. “I have confidence in that pitch. That’s my bread-and-butter. I usually keep it down, but for one reason or another it stayed up.”

Collins pulled Holtz for Mike James, who retired the next three batters, two on strikeouts, to end the eighth and struck out two of four batters in a scoreless ninth before giving way to Percival in the 10th.

Percival struck out Melvin Nieves with runners on first and third to end the 10th, but Harris got into trouble in the 11th when Raul Casanova led off with a single.

Deivi Cruz bunted and first baseman Darin Erstad threw to second in time to force pinch-runner Juan Encarnacion, but umpire Dan Morrison ruled the throw pulled DiSarcina off the bag. Replays showed Encarnacion was out, “but not too many calls have been going our way lately,” Collins said.

Harris turned Brian Hunter’s awful bunt into a forceout at third and Easley struck out, but Higginson singled to right-center to score Cruz with the winning run.

“This is one you remember,” Collins said. “It was certainly a game, with the way things were set up, that we felt good about after seven innings. It shows you’ve got to make plays and execute for 27 outs, and we haven’t been doing any of that.”

The Angels built their lead on the strength of Salmon’s solo shot to left in the fourth and two-run blast to left-center in the fifth, giving the right fielder 28 homers and 112 RBIs.

Salmon also singled in the second and scored on Garret Anderson’s groundout. But Detroit starter Scott Sanders retired the side in order in the sixth and seventh, and relievers Roberto Duran, Doug Brocail, Mike Myers and Todd Jones did not give up a hit through the 11th, meaning the Angels went the last six innings without a hit.

The Angels finished with only five hits and have now gone eight consecutive games without reaching double figures in hits.