Angels Lose a Slugfest

Managers hate going to their closers before the ninth inning, but Terry Collins didn’t have much choice Tuesday night. A stream of Angel pitchers had failed to subdue baseball’s worst-hitting team, so in came Troy Percival to face the Toronto Blue Jays with none out in the eighth inning.

And out went the Angels’ lead.

Percival fared no better than those before him, failing to snuff out what eventually became a seven-run Toronto rally, as the Blue Jays stunned the Angels, 13-11, before 17,271 in Edison Field.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Collins said of the exasperating eighth inning. “I tried to win the game in the eighth and figured I’d worry about the ninth when we got to it, but [Percival] just couldn’t stop it. . . . He said his arm was fine. He just pitched bad.”

The Angels took an 11-6 lead in the bottom of the seventh when Norberto Martin hit a sacrifice fly and Garret Anderson smacked a three-run double to right-center field.

But the Blue Jays stormed back in the eighth when Ed Sprague and Tony Fernandez singled and Darrin Fletcher homered off reliever Pep Harris, who had struck out Mike Stanley with runners on second and third to end the seventh.

Alex Gonzalez, who had four hits in the game, singled off reliever Greg Cadaret, and Collins went to Percival, who walked Shannon Stewart and gave up a single to Shawn Green to load the bases.

Percival’s wild pitch allowed Gonzalez to score and make it 11-10. Percival struck out Jose Canseco for the first out and walked Carlos Delgado intentionally, loading the bases.

Stanley then looped an RBI single to left to make it 11-11, but Green held at third. Sprague flied to center, not deep enough to score Green, and Tony Fernandez doubled into the right-field corner for a 13-11 lead.

Percival finally got Fletcher to fly to center, ending an inning in which he threw 35 pitches and the Angels blew their largest lead (five runs) of the season.

The Angels threatened in the eighth when Cecil Fielder and Damon Mashore singled, but Green, the Blue Jay right fielder, threw out Mashore at second when he tried to stretch his hit to a double.

Toronto closer Randy Myers then pitched a scoreless ninth for his seventh save, ending an ugly 3-hour, 58-minute game that included 31 hits--17 by the Blue Jays--and 13 pitchers.

The loss also nullified a remarkable Angel comeback, in which they quickly turned a 5-2 deficit into 7-5 lead with three runs in the fifth and two in the sixth, all of them scoring with two outs.

Cecil Fielder followed Anderson’s single by lining a Juan Guzman fastball into the left-field seats, and Dave Hollins hit Guzman’s next pitch over the right field wall, tying the score and giving the Angels their first back-to-back homers of the season.

Gary DiSarcina singled and Darin Erstad walked off reliever Carlos Almanzar with one out in the sixth. Both runners advanced on Anderson’s groundout and scored when Jim Edmonds lined a two-run double to right to make it 7-5.

The Blue Jays countered with a run in the seventh when Gonzalez doubled and Stewart singled off reliever Shigetoshi Hasegawa to make it 7-6.

Mike Holtz relieved Hasegawa and struck out Green, the first out in a double play that ended with catcher Phil Nevin throwing out Stewart attempting to steal.

But Canseco walked and Delgado doubled to the right-field corner. Angel right fielder Damon Mashore, who threw out Gonzalez at the plate in the fifth, made another fine defensive play on Delgado’s hit, splashing through a puddle to field the carom off the wall and throwing to the infield quick enough to hold Canseco at third.

Harris, recalled from triple-A Vancouver Monday, replaced Holtz and struck out Stanley on a full-count curveball to end the inning.

The Angels took a 2-0 lead in the second thanks to some rare production from the second-base position.

Norberto Martin, Carlos Garcia and Craig Shipley had combined to bat .191 (21 for 110) with three RBIs from the second-base spot through Monday night, but Martin boosted those totals slightly by following Hollins’ walk and Nevin’s single with an RBI single to center. DiSarcina’s single to center scored Nevin for a 2-0 lead.