Nine-Run Inning Just Gets Angels Over the Hill, 10-8

The reviews came in early for Ken Hill Wednesday night. Give the Angel pitcher one thumb--and two fingers--down.

The previously dormant Angel offense did far better at the box office, exploding for nine runs on nine hits in the third inning en route to a 10-8 victory over the Minnesota Twins before 20,070 in Edison Field.

But the Angel bullpen got panned, nearly blowing an eight-run lead and turning what should have been an easy victory over a lineup that included two players making their major league debuts into a cliffhanger, one that ended with Troy Percival striking out two of three in the ninth for his 39th save.

“There’s no reason for us to go through what we went through--our bullpen is too good to do that,” Angel Manager Terry Collins said. “It shows you that it’s September and we have 17 games to go, and every single game, every at-bat, every inning is important. If we concentrate, we’ll win; if we don’t, we’ll have letdowns.”

Omar Olivares did a good job in relief of the injured Hill, giving up one run on four hits in 4 2/3 innings before giving way to Shigetoshi Hasegawa to start the seventh.

Hasegawa had not given up a run in nine appearances, a span covering 14 1/3 innings, but that streak ended when he gave up Denny Hocking’s RBI double and Todd Walker’s RBI single, as the Twins cut the lead to 10-5.

Trevor Wilson came on to start the eighth and walked David Ortiz and hit A.J. Pierzynski. Collins summoned Pep Harris, who walked Chris Latham to load the bases.

Alex Ochoa followed with a sinking liner to left-center that Orlando Palmeiro lost in the lights, attempting a sliding catch as the ball skipped past him for a three-run triple, making it 10-8.

Harris escaped further damage by getting Hocking on a comebacker, striking out Corey Koskie and getting Paul Molitor to ground to short, and Percival, pitching for the first time in five days, was perfect in the ninth.

The victory allowed the Angels, hitless in the final five innings, to maintain their two-game lead over surging Texas in the AL West--and learn a valuable lesson.

“By God, we’re playing for something big here,” Collins said. “I don’t care who you face--there’s a reason those guys have big league uniforms on. . . . Whether there’s 50,000 or 5,000 in the stands, whether you’re playing the Twins with kids you’ve never heard of or the Orioles with Ripken and Palmeiro, you have to maintain your concentration, because you cannot turn this game off and then on again.”

How does Collins get that message across to his players?

“By having them read the paper [today],” he said.

The Angels turned on the offense early, ending an 18-inning scoreless drought with one run in the second and sending 14 batters to the plate in the third, amassing a season-high for runs and hits in an inning. They scored more runs in the third than they had had in the previous four games.

The outburst included Tim Salmon’s two-run home run into the rock-and-waterfall formation beyond the center-field wall, a 422-foot shot that was the Angels’ first homer in 41 innings and Salmon’s 25th of the season.

Jim Edmonds added a two-run double, the franchise-record 280th double of the season for the Angels. Edmonds and Garret Anderson each had two hits in the inning, which gave the Angels a 10-2 lead.

The rally provided a temporary distraction to what could be another disturbing injury in a season marked by injuries to key players.

Walker’s line drive to lead off the second inning deflected off Hill’s right hand and into center field, the seventh time this season (Chuck Finley twice, Jeff Juden, Allen Watson, Olivares and Hasegawa once) an Angel pitcher had been nailed by a comebacker.

Hill, the right-hander who missed 2 1/2 months after undergoing elbow surgery on June 15, remained in the game but was ineffective, giving up two more hits in the inning before being replaced by Olivares with the Twins leading, 2-0.

Hill was found to have a bruised thumb, index and middle fingers of his right hand and was taken to Chapman General Hospital--where the Angels by now are on a first-name basis with all the radiology department technicians--for X-rays, which were negative.

But Hill said he strained a ligament in his middle finger and wasn’t sure if he would be able to make his next start.

* DODGERS WIN, 6-2: C3