Angels Missing the Big Guns but Still Have Firepower

Terry Collins knows this can’t last forever. He knows the Angels can’t continue to rack up victories by the truckload without their best player, right fielder Tim Salmon, who Friday joined a disabled list already teeming with Angels.

“It can be a unifying force in the short run,” Collins said of Salmon’s absence, “but not in the long run. For two or three weeks, yeah, we can survive without him. But over three or four months, we need Timmy in the lineup.”

The Angels, however, continue to subscribe to that short-term logic, as they showed again Friday night when they pounded the Chicago White Sox, 7-1, before 36,485 at Edison Field, winning for the eighth time in nine games.

Cecil Fielder pulled the Angels even, 1-1, in the fifth with a clutch, two-out RBI single, and Darin Erstad broke open a 2-1 game in the sixth with the first grand slam of his career.

Omar Olivares, spot-starting for the injured Jack McDowell, gave up only one run on five hits in five very credible innings, and seldom-used reliever Shigetoshi Hasegawa retired all 12 of the batters he faced in the sixth through ninth to gain the victory.

Salmon and McDowell went on the disabled list this week. Catcher Todd Greene and second baseman Randy Velarde have been sidelined all season. And the Angels are 16-11, only two games behind the red-hot Texas Rangers.

“It shows you the talent on this team,” said Angel pitcher Chuck Finley, who goes for consecutive victory No. 15 tonight. “Before, when we lost two or three people, it was time to put on the life jackets.

“Now guys are comfortable, confident, they know what they’re doing, and they understand how to handle it. The feeling now is, we lost Tim and Jack, so maybe we won’t win by as many runs now.”

That appeared to be the case Friday night as the Angels clung to a 2-1 lead courtesy of Fielder’s RBI single in the fifth and Norberto Martin’s RBI single in the sixth.

Matt Walbeck had opened the sixth with a single and advanced when White Sox catcher Chad Kreuter’s throw on Damon Mashore’s dribbler in front of the plate pulled shortstop Mike Caruso off the bag at second.

Martin failed on two sacrifice bunts, then grounded an RBI single to center off Chicago starter James Baldwin, snapping an 0-for-17 skid and giving the Angels the lead.

Gary DiSarcina walked to load the bases, and White Sox Manager Jerry Manuel summoned left-hander Tony Castillo to pitch to the left-handed Erstad, normally a higher-percentage move but not in light of recent developments.

Baltimore Manager Ray Miller made the same move April 22, bringing in lefty Jesse Orosco in the eighth inning to face Erstad, who hit a two-run homer to give the Angels a 7-5 lead in a game they eventually won, 7-6.

Erstad, who hit .302 against left-handers last season, did it again Friday night, turning viciously on an 0-and-1 fastball and launching it an estimated 413 feet over the right-field wall for a 6-1 lead. Of his 27 careers, 12 have come against left-handers.

“It came in a good situation,” said Erstad, who extended his hitting streak to 10 games. “I was just trying to get the ball in the air for a sacrifice fly . . . I have no idea [why I hit lefties so well]. Maybe I focus a little more and bear down a little more and take better swings. I don’t know.”

Erstad, the first overall pick in the 1995 draft, is the Angels’ leadoff batter, but he now leads the team with seven home runs and 21 runs batted in, a pace that would give him 126 RBIs for the season.

“He’s not a prototypical leadoff hitter, and he won’t be a leadoff hitter for long,” Collins said. “But he’ll put up good numbers wherever he hits because the kid can hit.”

Erstad’s slam seemed to inject Hasegawa with an overdose of confidence, and the Japanese right-hander responded with what may have been the best performance of his brief Angel career, striking out three and giving up only one well-hit ball, Frank Thomas’ fly-ball out to the warning track in the eighth.

“Shige was outstanding, and so was the first guy,” Collins said, referring to Olivares. “He gave us exactly what we wanted, a quality outing. Then Shige came in and it was lights out. That’s the best I’ve seen him pitch in a while. He had everything working tonight.”