How The West Was Tied

Here comes Darin Erstad into the batter’s box, top of the ninth, right after Matt Walbeck (Matt Walbeck?) had cracked a two-run home run to make the score Texas Rangers 5, Angels 3. Darin Erstad with his hamstring as likely to snap apart as support his weight around the bases, pinch-hitting and making it hard not to think about that time 10 years ago when Kirk Gibson slammed a pinch-hit home run and dragged himself around the bases.

Imagine if Erstad, hobbling back after the second time he injured the hamstring, had smashed a home run Wednesday night, made the score 5-4, maybe keyed a dramatic Angels comeback victory.

Maybe then this division race would have gotten noticed.

But Erstad didn’t, and the Angels lost, 5-3. The American League West is a dead heat with 11 games to go. The two leaders have four more games against each other in the next seven days. Ho-hum.

If you have a division race and nobody knows, is it really a division race? If it’s not, then the Angels and the Rangers aren’t in the middle of anything right now.

Before Wednesday night’s game, a Dallas radio station was broadcasting that 9,000 tickets were still available. And those tickets pretty much stayed unsold.

This is the division race that usually is mentioned in the second half-hour of ESPN “SportsCenter,” after the daily Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa feature; after the breathless recounting of the National League wild-card race between the Mets and Cubs; after detailing whether the Yankees are going to set a season win record or whether they’ve peaked too soon; after an intimate look at Greg Maddux, what’s wrong; after the golf scores.

“It does seem like around the country no one is paying attention,” Angel designated hitter Tim Salmon said.

“Obviously this is not a nationwide story,” Angel Manager Terry Collins said.

“This is a pennant race?” Chris Berman, ESPN broadcaster wondered. “Seems pretty mellow out here. You don’t exactly feel the tension.”

This was during pregame batting practice when Collins was having professional golfer Nancy Lopez autograph a baseball. Lopez’s husband, Ray Knight, was joining Berman on the ESPN broadcast of this game, which at least was one sign that somebody was paying attention.

And yet, why should anyone pay attention?

Mark Johnson, Walbeck and Craig Shipley started for the Angels Wednesday night. Even Angel season-ticket holders might be pressed to say who these guys were. Johnson was recently acquired from the Cincinnati Reds’ triple-A team and had one pinch-hit appearance for the Angels before starting at first base against the Rangers. Walbeck, your starting catcher, batted .125 on this trip before singling and homering against the Rangers.

Somehow these injury-cursed Angels have hung in a division race that should have been over shortly after the Rangers acquired Wednesday night’s starting (and winning) pitcher Todd Stottlemyre, starting third baseman Todd Zeile and starting shortstop Royce Clayton. before the trading deadline. The Angels got, uh, nothing. That’s why somebody should pay attention. And yet the team hasn’t captured the heart of its fans, who could not fill Edison Field last weekend.

But then here in Texas it’s hard to get a pulse on this race. Either Troy Aikman has a broken collarbone, or the Cowboys and Longhorns are winless, which means it doesn’t really matter whether the Rangers underachieve or overachieve or even win the World Series.

“We know this is special,” Angel third-base coach Larry Bowa says, “but I’m not sure anybody else does.”

Bowa remembers how a city hung on every breath the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies took when he was a coach for that unexpected World Series team. It is an intensity Bowa misses, an intensity that was nowhere to be found at the Ballpark in Arlington on Wednesday night.

Except once.

Having doubled twice and homered once, accounting for the Angels’ only run and practically all of their base runners, Gregg Jefferies came to bat to face Stottlemyre with two out and two on and the score 5-1 in the top of the seventh. The scoreboard prompted the crowd to “Make Noise,” and so they did, some of them, as Jefferies dug his heels into the dirt, squinted his eyes and looked at some pitches, fouled off some pitches, glared at Stottlemyre, took a deep breath and . . . struck out.

Texas catcher Ivan Rodriguez took a hop after strike three, then pumped his fist at Jefferies’ back as the left fielder returned to the dugout. Texas fans stood and cheered and the scoreboard didn’t even tell them to.

For a moment, there it was. Enthusiasm. From a batter, a pitcher and his catcher. From the fans.

Take it from Jefferies. Tonight’s game against the Rangers is important.

“Very important,” he says.

One-game lead or one game behind with 10 to go. Doesn’t get much bigger than that. Really.