Angels Are Hit Hard by Loss, Bad News

The Angel winning streak did not merely end at nine Wednesday night. It hit the wall about as hard as Angel center fielder Damon Mashore, who slammed face-first into the fence in pursuit of Jay Bell’s run-scoring triple in the second inning of a 10-2 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks before 40,819 in Bank One Ballpark.

But the real crushing news didn’t come until afterward, when Angel pitcher Ken Hill revealed he may need surgery to repair a bone spur and possibly to remove bone chips from his right elbow, which has been bothering him for almost two months.

Hill, who was tagged for six runs on seven hits in three innings Wednesday night, will undergo X-rays today and confer with Lewis Yocum, team physician, before making any decisions.

“I know I’m going to need surgery at the end of the year--the only question is whether I do it now or later,” said Hill, who developed the bone spur while pitching for Texas last season. “I don’t want to keep going out there and hurting the ballclub.”

If Hill were to have surgery, he would probably be out for six to eight weeks and join Jack McDowell and Allen Watson on the disabled list.

Though Hill was impressive in his last start, giving up two runs on five hits in seven innings of a 6-2 victory over Seattle last Thursday night, he has experienced periodic pain and stiffness in the elbow since mid-April, when structural damage in Yankee Stadium and the postponement of two games forced Hill to go eight days without pitching.

The bone spur--and the bone chips that Hill believes may have flaked off the bone in his elbow--would explain Hill’s sporadic performances this season.

“I have my good days and my bad days,” Hill said. “I figured I would pitch until the pain became unbearable. I can handle so much pain, but this is too much. The more I pitched, the worse it got, and it’s not going to get better.”

Can Hill make it through this season without surgery?

“I don’t know,” Hill said.

He didn’t make it to the fourth inning Wednesday night, when the only suspense was how many of the Diamondbacks’ home runs would make a splash in the swimming pool beyond the right-center field fence.

Arizona left-hander Omar Daal (2-4) gave up one earned run on four hits and struck out six in eight innings, and struggling shortstop Bell, who had struck out in 21 of 51 previous at-bats, homered, tripled and singled to lead Arizona’s 15-hit attack.

The Diamondbacks scored four runs on five hits off Hill (8-5) in the second, and the Angels didn’t get any help from the quirky Bank One Ballpark outfield, which features a grass warning track next to the wall and a dirt track in front of the grass strip.

After Dave Dellucci singled, Bell hit a drive to deep left-center field. Mashore went back and leaped at the edge of the dirt track, perhaps not realizing he had a few more feet between him and the wall. The ball just cleared Mashore’s glove for an RBI triple, and Mashore crashed into the wall.

“I jumped too soon,” Mashore said. “It’s instinctive. You get to the edge of the [dirt] warning track and you jump. I thought I was out of room, and I had another step or two.”

Karim Garcia followed Bell’s triple with a run-scoring single for a 2-0 lead, and Kelly Stinnett reached on an infield single. Both runners advanced when catcher Matt Walbeck’s pickoff throw to second went into center field, and Daal’s groundout scored Garcia to make it 3-0. Andy Fox then singled to center for a 4-0 lead.

Hill ran into more problems in the third when he walked Dellucci with two out and Bell launched a two-run homer into the swimming pool, only the third time this season a home run ball has taken a dip in Bank One Ballpark.

Darin Erstad broke up Daal’s no-hitter with his 14th homer to lead off the fourth, but Angel reliever Pep Harris gave up back-to-back homers to Travis Lee and Matt Williams in the fifth, which made it 8-1.

“It was not a good night,” said Angel bench coach Joe Maddon, who was filling in for suspended Manager Terry Collins. “We just didn’t get any pitching, and that’s why the game--and the win streak--ended so abruptly.”