Loss Is Out of Angels’ Control

The blessing of the knuckleball can also be its curse. It is a pitch that can be so unpredictable hitters can barely touch it one game, or so fickle a pitcher can’t harness it the next.

Angel right-hander Steve Sparks had been so consistent, winning three of his first four decisions with his knuckler and throwing extremely well in his only loss, that it seemed he had tamed the pitch.

But Thursday night was a sobering reminder of how capricious the knuckleball can be, as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays ripped a shaky Sparks for five runs in the first inning of an 8-1 victory over the Angels before 24,015 in Edison Field.

The Angels, who have lost 10 of their last 13 games, maintained their 1 1/2-game lead over Texas in the American League West, but the division tightened by a notch--victories by Oakland and Seattle on Thursday pulled the A’s to within seven games and the Mariners to within 10 games of the Angels.

The Devil Rays, who had lost 12 of 13 going into Thursday night, sent 10 batters to the plate in the top of the first, a half-inning that took an agonizingly long 24 minutes to complete.

Sparks (3-2), who walked five of the last eight batters he faced in Saturday’s 2-0 loss to Seattle and ace Randy Johnson, threw 47 pitches in the inning, 25 of them balls. He walked four, two with the bases loaded.

“It wasn’t that his knuckler wasn’t working--it might have been working too well,” Angel Manager Terry Collins said. “It can go from one inning to the next; from one outing to the next. A lot of times the movement of a knuckler can take it right out of the strike zone.”

A lapse in control was clearly Sparks’ biggest problem, but a lapse in judgment was also costly. Randy Winn and Wade Boggs opened the game with walks, and Quinton McCracken hit an RBI single to right-center, Boggs taking third.

McCracken advanced on a passed ball, Dave Martinez struck out, and Bubba Trammell followed with a grounder that Sparks snagged on the side of the mound.

Boggs froze about eight feet off the bag and had no intention of going home, but Sparks still threw to third instead of getting the sure out at first. Boggs was safe, and Trammell reached on the fielder’s choice, loading the bases.

Walks to Paul Sorrento and Miguel Cairo made it 3-0, and former Angel prospect Aaron Ledesma’s two-run single to right made it 5-0. Sparks was pulled in favor of Allen Watson after giving up a single and a walk to start the second, the one-inning stint equaling the shortest start of his career.

“I felt good warming up in the bullpen, but something happened when I got to the mound,” Sparks said. “Whether it was the ball or not, it was a totally different feel, and I never got it right.

“You always think you’re one double play away from getting out of those things, and I felt if I could get a couple of knucklers over for strikes, I could get out of it. That didn’t happen.”

His timing wasn’t great, either. The Angels have overcome five-run deficits this season, but they had no chance against Tampa Bay ace Rolando Arrojo, who gave up one unearned run on three hits in seven innings to improve to 11-6.

Garret Anderson scored on Ledesma’s throwing error in the second, but the Angels mounted only one other scoring threat when Darin Erstad singled and Dave Hollins walked to open the third.

Jim Edmonds lined to first for a double play, and, after Tim Salmon’s walk, Cecil Fielder bounced into a fielder’s choice. The Angels had only one baserunner from the fourth inning on, when Justin Baughman reached on an error in the seventh. Jim Mecir (eighth inning) and Roberto Hernandez (ninth) closed out the game for the Devil Rays.

“If you give Arrojo a five-run lead in the first,” Collins said, “you’re in trouble.”

Watson gave up one run on five hits in four innings, an outing that moved him one step closer to regaining his rotation spot.

Pep Harris gave up Sorrento’s bases-empty homer in the seventh and back-to-back doubles by Martinez and Trammell for the Devil Rays’ final run in the ninth.