Falling Angels Now Two Back in West

The Angels could take pride in calling themselves a gritty bunch of gamers, a feisty band that never gave in to injuries that would drown lesser teams.

Frankly, though, the Angels would prefer to call themselves champions.

“If we’re going to talk about resilient, now’s the time,” Manager Terry Collins said. “We’ve been talking about it for three months. Now is when it pays off.”

The Texas Rangers seized the American League West lead from the Angels on Thursday and won their game Friday. The Angels then lost their fourth game in a row, a 5-3, 12-inning setback against the Seattle Mariners, to fall two games behind Texas.

The Mariners scored twice in the 12th on run-scoring doubles by David Segui and Alex Rodriguez.

Anaheim went quietly in the bottom of the 12th against Mike Timlin.

The Angels’ bullpen temporarily preserved flagging pennant hopes. After the Angels yanked starter Ken Hill in the fourth inning, five relievers--Jason Dickson, Mike Holtz, Troy Percival, Jarrod Washburn and Rich DeLucia--retired the next 22 batters.

Percival, who almost always enters a game in the ninth inning and with a lead to protect, was summoned in the eighth inning of a tie game. He got the last out in the eighth and struck out the side in the ninth, a performance more dominating but hardly more newsworthy than those of his bullpen buddies.

“There’s no panic,” Percival said. “If you told us before the season we’d be within a game, we’d take our chances.

“They were six games up. We caught them. We were three games up. They caught us. There’s still time for the lead to change three or four times.”

For all the fuss about Chuck Finley, the Angels’ ace, Hill could well be the one who determines whether the season extends into the playoffs. Finley, who has won once in his past five starts, will get another shot at Texas on Monday or Tuesday.

Hill, the only Angel pitcher to start a World Series game, is slated to start Wednesday, in the final scheduled game between the Angels and Rangers. If the teams must settle a tie in a one-game playoff next Monday, Hill is slated to start that game too.

While Hill is penciled in for those starts, the Angels have an eraser handy. Hill took a line drive off his pitching hand 10 days ago, and bruises on three fingers forced the Angels to delay his next start until Friday.

The results were not pretty. Hill retired the side in order in the first inning, then gave up hits to seven of the next 14 batters and departed in the fourth inning, with the score tied 3-3.

Dickson, a displaced starter, replaced Hill and silenced the Mariners. Dickson faced 11 batters, retiring them all.

The next batters he faces may wear “TEXAS” on the front of their uniforms. If the Angels opt not to start Hill against the Rangers on Wednesday, they could well turn to Dickson, who opened the season in the rotation but was banished to the bullpen in May and banished to the minor leagues in August.

The early innings evoked an ominous reminder of defeat. In Thursday’s loss at Texas, the Angels scored four runs in the first inning, but the Rangers immediately answered with four of their own.

Back home Friday, the Angels scored two runs in the first inning, but the Mariners immediately matched.

Without Jim Edmonds, the Angels might not have scored at all. Of the Angels’ nine runs over the past two days, Edmonds has driven in five.

In the first inning Friday, Edmonds doubled home Randy Velarde and later scored on a single by Gregg Jefferies. In the third inning, Edmonds hit his second home run in two days and 24th of the season.

The Mariners scored twice in the second, on a two-out double by rookie Ryan Radmanovich, and once in the third, on a two-out single by Edgar Martinez.

* DODGERS LOSE

Bonds’ home run in the eighth inning keeps Giants’ wild-card hopes alive. C5