Angels Open Gate for Pennant Drive

Here it was, yet another close game, and Angel Manager Terry Collins had concerns about his bullpen.

This shouldn’t happen to a guy with a closer like Troy Percival up and ready to go.

Percival wasn’t the problem. It was, literally, the bullpen. A latch that wouldn’t work and a gate that wouldn’t open.

Toronto reliever Carlos Almanzar had to climb through the stands in the seventh inning--he picked up a T-shirt, a cap and two pennants from the concession stand on the way, Collins quipped--and Collins didn’t want his pitchers taking the same route.

“Can we get that thing fixed?” Collins asked equipment manager Ken Higdon. “I’d like to use Percival in the ninth.”

Most managers worry about surviving those middle innings and getting the game to their closer. This might have been the first case of a manager worrying about getting his closer to the game.

It took five Edison Field workers, but they got the gate fixed--in time for Percival to make a rare eighth-inning appearance. Percival did his job, finished off the Blue Jays for his 35th save and the Angels had themselves a 3-2 victory.

Just another little part of the unorthodox course the Angels have followed to first place in the American League West this season. Now they head to New York. The last time they tried to play there, in April, a 500-pound chunk of Yankee Stadium collapsed. It’s been that kind of year.

When three-fifths of the starting rotation gets injured, the team’s best player can’t play the outfield because of a tender foot, the catcher can’t catch because of a bad shoulder, the second baseman’s surgically repaired elbow blows out again, this isn’t the expected result.

“We keep winning games that we’re not supposed to win,” pitcher Chuck Finley said.

They often don’t find a way to win the games they are supposed to win, such as any time Finley takes the mound. His victory on Sunday was only his second since June 30.

Teams can get away with that when they’re getting eight wins from the likes of Steve Sparks, as the Angels have. They keep finding ways to make up for what they’re missing.

Credit Collins and his hard-working group of players. But there’s one nagging question brought up by their success: What’s up with the Texas Rangers?

If the Angels’ position atop the AL West borders on the miraculous, the flip side is the Rangers are in contention for the most disgraceful team in baseball.

The Rangers can’t overcome that high earned-run average, and Manager Johnny Oates must be doing as many things wrong as Collins is doing right. The Angels went 9-18 in July and the Rangers couldn’t put them away.

Longtime Angel observers keep waiting for the inevitable collapse to come. Maybe, just maybe, it won’t. They were supposed to be finished with all of the injuries. They were supposed to be finished when the non-waiver trading deadline passed and all they had acquired was an injured catcher.

Somehow it’s almost Labor Day and the Angels are still in first.

No, they didn’t get any help from the front office. For this team, just getting their spring training roster back would be an improvement.

“We don’t even have the guys we thought we’d have,” Collins said.

That’s slowly starting to change. The cavalry, such as it is, consists of the return of pitchers Jack McDowell and Ken Hill (who will start against Boston on Friday), and Todd Greene’s bat (the catcher’s shoulder isn’t right yet so they put him in the outfield and close their eyes when the ball comes his way).

The jury will stay out until they return from this trip to New York, Boston and Cleveland. Maybe that will present the final evidence of why the Angels won’t win this race.

“We’re not going to fold,” Collins assured.

They weren’t supposed to be here in the first place, remember?

Five more weeks isn’t too long to continue this charade.