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Giants Outlast Angels in 10th

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The past month has been a journey through unchartered territory for Angel reliever Greg Cadaret, who, after being released by nine organizations in the past five years, finally found a prominent home in the Angel bullpen as the team’s primary left-handed set-up man.

After spending his first month in Anaheim as a mop-up man, eating up innings in blowout losses, Cadaret was suddenly in games when they mattered, pitching in the seventh and eighth innings and doing a superb job, taking a 3.00 earned-run average into Wednesday night’s game.

But Cadaret did not look too comfortable in his new role Wednesday night, giving up four runs on four hits in the top of the 10th, as the San Francisco Giants beat the Angels, 6-3, before 24,299 in Edison Field.

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The Angels had sent the game into extra innings with a two-run eighth inning rally, which included RBI doubles by Jim Edmonds and Orlando Palmeiro, but Cadaret ran into immediate trouble in the 10th when Brent Mayne opened with a single.

Darryl Hamilton’s sacrifice bunt got by the diving Cadaret, and Hamilton legged it out for a single. After failing twice to bunt the runners up, Bill Mueller tried another approach: he blasted a 1-2 pitch over the wall in left- center for a 5-2 lead.

After Edmonds’ diving catch of Barry Bonds’ drive to right-center, Charlie Hayes doubled, knocking Cadaret out of the game. J.T. Snow greeted reliever Pep Harris with an RBI single to cap the rally.

The Angels scored an unearned run off winner Robb Nen in the bottom of the 10th with the help of second baseman Rey Sanchez’s error.

Dave Hollins had started the Angels’ eighth-inning rally off baseball’s best bullpen with a one-out walk off reliever Rich Rodriguez. Edmonds followed with a double to the left-center gap, which easily scored Hollins to make it 2-1.

San Francisco Manager Dusty Baker summoned right-hander Steve Reed to pitch to Damon Mashore, who had replaced the injured Tim Salmon in the seventh.

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Angel Manager Terry Collins countered with the left-handed Palmeiro, who sliced an RBI double to the gap in left-center, just out of reach of a diving Hamilton, to make it 2-2.

Reed struck out Cecil Fielder, and Baker replaced Reed with left-hander Jim Poole to face Garret Anderson, who flied to center to end the inning.

The Angels hit .293 with 35 home runs during their record-setting June, when they went 22-6, outscored opponents, 173-116, and averaged 6.2 runs and 10.4 hits a game.

Maybe their arms were tired. The calendar turned to July and Angel bats turned to balsa wood against Giants starter Danny Darwin, a 42-year-old right- hander who gave up four hits and struck out three in 6 1/3 scoreless innings.

The Angels failed to advance a runner to third until the seventh, when they loaded the bases with one out on Salmon’s walk, Anderson’s single and Matt Walbeck’s walk.

Not only did the Angels fail to score, as Justin Baughman struck out and Gary DiSarcina flied to center off reliever John Johnstone, but a Baughman liner struck Salmon on the inside of the left knee in foul territory next to the third-base bag, knocking the Angel designated hitter out of the game.

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Salmon has already been hobbled by a torn plantar fascia ligament in his left foot--now he has a companion injury, a contusion that won’t make his left leg feel any better.

Wasted in the loss was another strong start by Angel knuckleballer Steve Sparks, who gave up two runs on seven hits in 7 1/3 innings. After Hamilton opened the game with a single, Walbeck completely missed two knucklers, resulting in two passed balls that allowed Hamilton to take third.

But Sparks struck out Mueller and Barry Bonds, the latter on a mammoth swing-and-a-miss, and got Charlie Hayes to pop to shallow right, stranding Hamilton.

The Giants finally scored in the fifth when Stan Javier singled to center with one out and took third on Rich Aurilia’s hit-and-run dribbler to the vacated second-base spot.

Brent Mayne lofted a fly ball to left field that scored Javier for a 1-0 lead. Bonds made it 2-0 in the sixth when he clobbered a tumbling knuckler an estimated 413 feet into the right-center field seats for his 18th homer of the season.

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ANGELS REPORT: C8

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