Trouble Follows Angels

The Angels, having escaped from a New York stay during which they had more bus rides in one day than games in the entire series, seemingly had a soft landing awaiting them back home.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

What more could a weary team ask for in a pick-me-up than an expansion team? Throughout Thursday evening, many of the 22,906 at Edison Field had to wonder just exactly which team was experiencing first-year growing pains.

The Devil Rays’ 6-5 victory was made possible, in a large part, by the Angels, who had problems at the plate and in the field.

They had more double plays (four) than hits (three) in the first four innings. They also made three errors, only one less than they have had all season.

It was that way until the end. The Angels loaded the bases with one out in the ninth inning, but got only one run after Dave Hollins and Tim Salmon had back-to-back ground outs to end the game.

“We didn’t get much going,” Manager Terry Collins said. “Seven hits isn’t going to win you many games.”

This came on the heels of a zombie-like performance in New York, where two games were canceled because a 500-pound steel expansion joint collapsed at Yankee Stadium. They were more or less no-shows Wednesday in a 6-3 loss to the Yankees at Shea Stadium.

“It was a crazy couple of days,” shortstop Gary DiSarcina said. “I think the layoff hurt us more than anything. You like to get into a routine. We were a little off.”

They were still off Thursday.

Salmon and Carlos Garcia, both exceptional fielders, made errors. Both led to runs. Catcher Matt Walbeck, a defensive specialist, had a throwing error and a passed ball within seconds of each other that let another run in.

“We’re done making excuses,” Collins said. “We’ve got to get it done on the field. Don’t be pointing the finger at one guy.”

There was enough to spread around.

The Angels hit into a double play in each of the first four innings, two by Jim Edmonds, who was batting clean-up.

Those lapses will help any team, even an expansion team. Of course, the Devil Rays are “expansion” in name only. Their roster is more Who’s Who than who’s that?

“Take a look at their lineup, Fred McGriff, Wade Boggs, Kevin Stocker, where do you want me to stop?” Collins said. “They got a nice team. The only thing that makes them an expansion team is they have uniforms that nobody has seen before.”

McGriff, who played for the Atlanta Braves in the National League Championship Series last October, had four hits and drove in a run.

Stocker, who played in a World Series while with the Philadelphia Phillies, was part of the four doubles plays and also drove the first run with a second-inning single.

Boggs struck out twice before leaving with a sore calf muscle. His replacement, Bobby Smith, had an RBI double in the seventh and then scored on a sacrifice fly by Paul Sorrento, as the Devil Rays scored two runs in seventh to take a 6-4 lead.

Still, there were moments when the Devil Rays had the look of an expansion team.

Center fielder Quinton McCracken misplayed Darin Erstad’s line drive into a triple to start the bottom of the first--extending Erstad’s hitting streak to 13 games. Edmonds got McCracken off the hook, as he followed a walk to Salmon by hitting into the Angels’ first double play.

More serious was second baseman Miguel Cario’s gaffe with the bases loaded in the sixth. He dived to field Garret Anderson’s slow grounder, but never got his footing and threw the ball into the Tampa Bay dugout. Two runs scored.

Walbeck’s ground out then scored Cecil Fielder from third to tie the score, 4-4.