Angels Should Give Mo a Save

If there was any question why the Angels forked over $80 million for Mo Vaughn this winter, the slugger who thrives on pressure situations, who loves to be up with the game on the line, who doesn’t cower from the spotlight, provided the answer Wednesday night.

With his team staggering like a punch-drunk fighter, having blown a 10-run lead, Vaughn delivered a knockout swing of his own. He ripped a two-run home run--his second homer of the game--into the right-field seats in the eighth inning to give the Angels a wild-and-wacky 12-10 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in front of 18,304 in Edison Field.

“That’s what he does--he loves to be up there in those situations,” Manager Terry Collins said. “He can’t wait. That’s what he talks about in the dugout, and that’s why he’s a great player.”

Randy Velarde had reached on second baseman Pat Kelly’s throwing error with one out in the eighth, and Vaughn drilled left-handed reliever Graeme Lloyd’s first pitch over the wall in right to break a 10-10 tie.

Angel closer Troy Percival then caught Jose Cruz looking at a called third strike with runners on second and third to end the game, giving the Angels their first chance to exhale since the fourth inning.

Asked if he lives for these situations, Vaughn broke into a sly grin and said: “All day and all night.”

The fact the Angels even needed Vaughn’s heroics is nothing short of stunning. The Angels don’t keep records for leads surrendered--wonder why?--but it’s safe to say no one associated with the franchise could remember the Angels blowing a lead as large as the one they coughed up to the Blue Jays.

Collins promised the Angels would play with more intensity Wednesday, and for four innings, they showed more purpose, more drive, than they have all season, building what seemed an insurmountable 10-run lead.

But it all collapsed under an avalanche of Blue Jay hits and runs, most of them surrendered by Angel starter Tim Belcher.

For some reason, large leads have sat with Belcher about as well as three-week-old tuna. The right-hander gave up four runs of a five-run lead in last Thursday’s 8-7 loss to Toronto, and Wednesday night he was ripped for six runs in the fifth inning after being staked to a 10-0 lead.

Limited to two hits in the first four innings, the Blue Jays opened the fifth with four consecutive hits, Darrin Fletcher’s double, singles by Alex Gonzalez and Kelly (RBI), and Shannon Stewart’s three-run homer.

Shawn Green launched his seventh homer of the season into the right-field seats to make it 10-5, and Fletcher capped the rally with a two-out, RBI single to center.

One out away from a potential victory, Collins had no choice but to pull Belcher in favor of reliever Al Levine, who got Gonzalez to bounce back to the mound for the final out of an excruciating inning.

“There’s only so much you can do,” said a disgusted Belcher, who left with a 9.13 earned-run average and a .373 opponents’ batting average. “I would have taken myself out, too.”

Toronto wasn’t through. Kelly opened the sixth with a single, and Green belted home run No. 8 off reliever Scott Schoeneweis deep into the right-field seats, trimming the Angel lead to 10-8.

Schoeneweis gave up a double to pinch-hitter Geronimo Berroa in the seventh and was pulled for Shigetoshi Hasegawa, who gave up Gonzalez’s game-tying, two-run homer to center.

In the span of three innings Wednesday, the Blue Jays equaled their franchise record for largest deficit overcome and wiped out the momentum the Angels, losers of seven of their previous nine games, had built in the first four innings.

Whether it was Tim Salmon racing around the bases like Kenny Lofton to score from first on a grounder into the right-field corner, or Troy Glaus diving headfirst to steal third, or Garret Anderson taking an extra base when an outfielder bobbled the ball, the Angels opened with a fire that has been lacking for the past week.

The Angels scored twice in the second, five times in the third and added three in theBuss ignored.

* After a 6-6 start, West argued for the firing of Harris and the elevation of Kurt Rambis--which he got, right when the Lakers most needed an experienced hand running the show.

* He protested the signing of Dennis Rodman, especially when the non-negotiations dragged out over two weeks, but not enough to prevent it--or even to insist that Buss not do it.

* As Rodman proved incapable of even the most liberal interpretation of fitting in with his teammates, West--the one man Rodman respected in the organization--was nowhere to be seen, furious with Buss and furious with himself for not standing more forthrightly in the way of such a time bomb.

As West sulked in protest and in anger away from the Laker scene (he has not been visible at a Laker game since mid-March), it was left to a rookie coach to go crazy trying to deal with Rodman, and even after Rodman was released, General Manager Mitch Kupchak had to explain it.

* He has left Rambis to scramble around in limbo as the Lakers have dissolved.

While it now seems probable that Rambis will not be asked to return and that the Lakers might go after a veteran such as Phil Jackson or, if he springs loose from Orlando, Chuck Daly, whom has Rambis been able to lean on for public and private support amid the crises?

Last season, as speculation about Harris’ status flew, West wrote a letter to the team, urging the players to bind together or else see the season slip away. The Lakers finished the season on a 22-3 roll, won 61 games and made it to the conference finals.

* West’s absence allowed the Shaquille O’Neal/Kobe Bryant personality clash develop from a casual sideshow into an actual issue, to where O’Neal’s asides about Bryant’s wild play and being overly indulged might have a lasting effect.

The players themselves say there’s no reason to be alarmed by the back-and-forth. “If we saw that Kobe didn’t pass it to Shaq, or that Shaq won’t set screens for Kobe, then we’d have to step in and say something, but that’s not the case at all,” Derek Fisher said.

Bryant continues to brush off the media’s interest in their relationship, calling it “only entertainment for you all,” and saying all that matters is that they are fine on the court together.

Bryant said neither he nor O’Neal has talked about their problems, or, for that matter, felt the need to.

But Bryant’s associates say that O’Neal’s words have hurt Bryant, even if he is strong enough to accept them and move on.

* West dangled Jones and Campbell as trade bait but grew leery of Rice when Rice said the Lakers wouldn’t be his prime choice and suggested it would take a $60-million contract extension to make him happy.

* Then, eager to get rid of Campbell’s salary, and prodded by his own emotions (he was upset that Jones pouted amid the trade talk), West swung the hammer that knocked the Lakers loose from their bearings.

He refused Milwaukee’s offer of point guard Terrell Brandon for Campbell (and Fisher) so he could package Jones and Campbell for Rice, in part, because O’Neal had been so loudly demanding a shooter.

Instead of becoming the Lakers’ missing link, Rice, as West guessed at when he hesitated to make the deal, has accentuated the Lakers’ existing weaknesses, forced Bryant to move from small forward (where he was flourishing) to shooting guard (where he has not) and provided very little offensive firepower in return.

The truth is, Rick Fox, last year’s starter, probably could provide more things--defense, offensive balance, leadership--for the Lakers as a starter.

While he is no question an extremely dangerous scorer and a very valuable NBA commodity, Rice is a shadow of his former all-star self, and the Lakers are 12-13 since the trade.

Rice doesn’t play transition defense; Jones was by far the Lakers’ best shield against wild fastbreaks. Rice needs help defending his man; Jones not only handled his man, but played the passing lanes brilliantly.

Rice urged the Lakers to retool their offensive scheme to get him the ball in better rhythm; Jones was content to let the offense revolve around O’Neal and Bryant, and fill in the gaps.

Rice has a history of being unhappy if he feels he is underpaid, and the Lakers have no intention of paying him $12 million or more per season to keep him around, which certainly could develop into a huge problem.

To associates, West now is proffering this defense for the Rice acquisition: Buss made me do it.

But Buss only wanted to get rid of Campbell. It was West who decided that Jones, signed through next season, would be too expensive to keep around for the long term and that Rice was the best option.

It was West who gave up his last great tradable assets--Jones and, to a lesser extent, Campbell--and in return, shored up neither of the Lakers’ need areas, power forward or point guard.

Was it all West’s fault? Of course not. And nobody can avoid mistakes here and there.

But the Lakers are used to West navigating them out of the worst errors and leading them by personality, pride and intellect.

By constructing a trade that looked fine on paper but had reams of miscalculated logic behind it, by vanishing from public view when his players and his rookie coach needed something to hold them together, by remaining undecided when his owner interfered most flagrantly, West made his own nightmare come true.

And he probably knows that now.