Radke Finds That Angels Cure His Ills

It didn’t matter that Minnesota Twin right-hander Brad Radke hadn’t won a game since July 28, or that he was 1-7 with a 6.85 earned-run average in 11 starts since the all-star break.

All that mattered was that Radke was standing on the Edison Field mound Tuesday night, and that could mean only one thing for the Angels: trouble.

Radke might look like Mike Oquist to the rest of the American League these days, but to the Angels he might as well be Roger Clemens. He pitched seven shutout innings, giving up six hits and striking out seven, to lead the Twins to a 5-0 victory over the Angels before 20,444 Tuesday night.

Radke, who shut down the Angels with pinpoint control and an outstanding changeup, now has a 7-1 record and 1.57 earned-run average against the Angels, and his performance, combined with Texas’ 7-6 come-from-behind win over Kansas City, trimmed the Angels’ lead over the Rangers to two games in the American League West.

“If we hit the ball hard it was at someone, but we didn’t hit many hard,” Angel Manager Terry Collins said. “Radke moves the ball around well and changes speeds. I don’t know how he does against other teams, but he dominates us.”

Radke and reliever Eddie Guardado, who pitched two shutout innings, sent the Angel offense into an even deeper funk. Of the Angels’ eight hits Tuesday, two were infield singles and one was a bloop single. Only three runners reached second base.

The Angels are now batting .246 (32 for 130) with no homers and six RBIs in the first four games of a five-game homestand. Of those 32 hits, 30 have been singles.

The Angels have also gone scoreless in 23 of their last 25 innings, and all of their runs in a three-run first against the Royals on Sunday night were unearned.

They had a season-high 21 hits in a 13-5 win over Cleveland last Wednesday, the night Darin Erstad went down because of a strained left hamstring, but it appears the Angels are now feeling the strain of an Erstad-less attack.

“Sure, we miss Darin,” Collins said, “but we don’t have him. We’re a good-hitting team. We’ll hit. We’re just not swinging like I know we can.”

Twin catcher Terry Steinbach provided all the offense Minnesota would need with two solo home runs, off Angel starter Steve Sparks in the sixth and reliever Allen Watson in the eighth.

Minnesota took a 1-0 lead in the first when Otis Nixon singled to left, stole second, took third on a groundout and scored on Sparks’ wild pitch.

A two-out rally in the fourth gave the Twins a 2-0 lead. David Ortiz singled and Pat Meares dumped a double that landed about two feet inside the right-field line.

Garret Anderson heaved a one-hop throw from deep right all the way home--missing the cut-off man--but Nevin had to range far up the first-base line to field it, and his diving tag at the plate was a split-second late to catch the sliding Ortiz.

Molitor followed Steinbach’s sixth-inning shot with a seventh-inning homer, his 3,300th hit. Steinbach’s 13th homer of the season made the score 5-0 in the eighth.

Knowing what little success the Angels have had against Radke, Collins opted for a more aggressive approach in the early innings, but most of his moves backfired.

Jim Edmonds singled to open the first but was thrown out at second when Randy Velarde swung and missed on a hit-and-run play. Gary DiSarcina reached on an error to start the third but was thrown out trying to steal second on a 2-and-2 pitch to Edmonds.

How desperate was Collins to jump-start his offense? He even sent designated hitter Tim Salmon on a hit-and-run play in the fourth. Troy Glaus fouled the pitch off.

“We’re still in the driver’s seat,” Collins said of the division race. “If we take care of our business, we don’t have to worry what Texas does.”