Angels Provide Fireworks, Mariners Do the Celebrating

Tim Salmon, Jim Edmonds, Garret Anderson, Gary DiSarcina, Tony Phillips, and the rest of the Anaheim gang returned to that ancient Angel burial ground known as the Kingdome, where the ashes of their 1995 pennant hopes were scattered unceremoniously over the turf.

And like a recurring nightmare for the visiting team, the Seattle Mariners put another promising Angel season to rest Tuesday night, clinching the American League West championship with a thrilling, 4-3 victory over the Angels before a sometimes-deafening crowd of 52,884.

Mariner right fielder Jay Buhner keyed a four-run first inning with a three-run homer, his 40th homer of the season, and Seattle ace Randy Johnson gutted out an eight-inning, three-run, 11-strikeout, 143-pitch performance to improve to 19-4.

Heathcliff Slocumb, carrying the tattered banner for a beleaguered Mariner bullpen that had blown 25 save opportunities this season, then restored some shine to the relief corps by striking out pinch-hitter Jack Howell with the tying run on second to end the game.

Fireworks erupted inside the Kingdome, and the Mariners gathered around second base, hugging each other, while many Angels sat in the dugout and stared out blankly, absorbing the scene for several minutes before filing back to their clubhouse.

It was the Mariners’ second division title in their 21-year history and second in the past three years, and it marked the third consecutive season in which the Angels had to endure a division-clinching celebration.

The Mariners whipped the Angels, 9-1, in the Kingdome in a memorable one-game playoff to determine the West 1995 champion in 1995, and the Angels were in Texas last season when the Rangers clinched the West title.

The Angels actually outhit the Mariners, 9-7, Tuesday night. They also out-homered them, 3-1, and outplayed them defensively with several fine plays. But while Seattle players sprayed champagne all over each other in their clubhouse, the Angels were licking a major self-inflicted wound.

You knew Johnson was tiring in the eighth when DiSarcina, the Angels’ No. 9 hitter who hadn’t homered since May 23, lined an 0-1 slider over the left- field wall to pull the Angels to within 4-3.

Edmonds, who homered twice against Johnson, then walked with one out and tried to take third on Salmon’s single to left. But Mariner outfielder Roberto Kelly fired a one-hop throw to Andy Sheets, who applied the tag to Edmonds for the second out.

Johnson got ahead of Dave Hollins and, reaching back for his 143rd pitch of the game, threw a slider by him to end the inning.

Orlando Palmeiro, who replaced Rickey Henderson after Henderson was ejected in the seventh inning for arguing a called third strike, singled to open the ninth off Slocumb.

But the right-hander, acquired from the Boston Red Sox in a July 31 trade, got Anderson to fly out, struck out Luis Alicea and then struck out Howell swinging at a full-count forkball.

Edmonds’ homer to left-center in the first gave the Angels a 1-0 lead, but the Mariners roared back in their half of the first with four runs, three coming on a Buhner bomb, a homer into the second deck in left that traveled an estimated 484 feet.

In the sixth, Edmonds hit a liner over the right-center field wall.