No Shame in This Loss

They could have played this series in October without anyone being disappointed.

There were that many twists, turns and tense moments.

The Yankees, 60 games over .500 and still pursuing the record for most wins in a season, know they will be there in October.

The Angels still face a treacherous road, but they won three of five in the hostile environment in which the Yankees had lost only nine games all year, they became the only American League team to win a season series from the Yankees and, as shortstop Gary DiSarcina said, “we can put this in our back pocket as a confidence booster if we run into tough times the rest of the year.”

Beyond that, perhaps, it was another illustration that the Angels, underfinanced generally and undermanned in some areas, are capable of dealing with a star-crossed history, burying, in particular, the blown opportunity of 1995 and the miserable events of 1996--when the current core was still learning on the job.

“I don’t think we could have hung with a team of [the Yankees’] caliber in those two years,” DiSarcina said. “We were a little too young. We would have been intimidated. Experience is an important factor.”

There was no intimidation, only the exhilaration of three victories followed by the disappointment of two losses in the Yankees’ last at-bat.

New York won in the 11th inning Thursday night, 6-5, after the Angels had rallied from deficits of 3-1 and 5-4 against David Cone and Ramiro Mendoza, as they had rallied against Andy Pettitte, Hideki Irabu, Ryan Bradley and the combination of David Wells and Mariano Rivera in the previous games.

“You don’t like somebody coming into your house and rearranging the furniture,” Yankee Manager Joe Torre said of the Angels’ resiliency.

“They’re in first place in their division, and there’s a reason. They play hard, fight hard, don’t give up. We tried to shut them down two days in a row in the ninth inning and they came back.”

The finale lasted 4 hours and 26 minutes. Angel Manager Terry Collins said he didn’t think he had ever been through four tougher or more draining days.

What does he take out of it? The exhilaration or the disappointment? The satisfaction of the three wins or the frustration of the missed sweep?

“We played hard, came back again and I’m real proud of them for that,” he said. “No one expected us to come in and win three in a row, but if you’re going to win consistently against a team of that caliber, you can’t make mistakes like we did tonight.”

Chuck Finley, who has dominated the Yankees but was pitching on three days’ rest, walked five in five innings, setting a tone. The Angels walked eight and made two costly errors. Collins might have made one in the 11th, when he opted to pitch to American League batting leader Bernie Williams with one out, a runner at second, first base open and Paul O’Neill on deck.

Instead of walking Williams and pitching to O’Neill in a double play situation, Collins elected to have Mike Fetters pitch to Williams, hoping he would chase a Fetters forkball, after which he would have walked O’Neill to pitch to Chad Curtis. Instead, Williams said, Fetters threw a fastball, which he hit off the center-field fence for a game-winning double.

“O’Neill has killed us,” Collins said. “It was a difficult choice and it turned out to be the wrong one.”

There is no soft touch, of course, in a Yankee lineup in which the No. 9 hitter, Scott Brosius, has driven in 80 runs. A $62-million payroll on this particular night afforded Torre the luxury of starting a lineup against Finley that did not include O’Neill, Brosius, Tino Martinez or Darryl Strawberry.

“That’s why they are what they are,” Collins said.

What are the Angels?

Collins thought hard about that and said: “On any given night we can play with anybody in baseball--whether it’s the Yankees, Braves and Astros.”

The hope, of course, is that the Angels will make every night a given night. Boston is next, then Cleveland. Of their 27 remaining games, 13 are against teams above .500, including six with the Texas Rangers, who are 2 1/2 behind in the AL West. The Rangers, by contrast, have 22 of their last 30 against teams now under .500.

Ken Hill, returning from elbow surgery, faces the Red Sox tonight, a potentially pivotal development in the wake of Jack McDowell’s return.

Collins has worked most of the summer with a patchwork rotation and continues to get lifts from unexpected sources such as outfielders Reggie Williams and Orlando Palmeiro and knuckleballer Steve Sparks.

Can that last? Is Hill ready? Can the Angels retain the intensity and inspiration they displayed in Yankee Stadium, or will the last two losses take a toll?

“The way we played against these guys is something to be proud of,” DiSarcina said. “This has been a pressure cooker. Everybody they send up there can do damage. You can’t give them an extra out, but I think we raised our level of play in the last four days. We continued to grind, and I think it will make us a better team.”

Time will tell, of course, and the clock starts tonight.