ANGELS REPORT : Vaughn Has Regrets, but Not About Leaving Boston

Regrets . . . Mo Vaughn has had a few.

“Some of the things I did in Boston, right or wrong, I wish I hadn’t done,” Vaughn said.

Does that include leaving the Red Sox to sign a six-year, $80-million deal with the Angels, a team that has languished while Vaughn’s former teammates contend for a wild-card berth without him?

Mo said it isn’t so.

“I was going to get the money wherever I went,” Vaughn said Saturday. “When I made this decision, I thought about quality of life. I went through a whole year of contract squabbles in Boston. It would have never ended.

“When I walked outside, I didn’t want to be in the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald every day. Maybe my biggest mistake was that I lived here [year-round]. I just wanted to be a person again. If I signed here for seven more years, I would have retired angry.”

These days, Vaughn is just depressed. About being in last place. About the way the Angels have played. About the way they have squabbled. About a dismal season in which he is batting .261 with 21 homers and 74 runs batted in. About an ankle injury he suffered in the season opener that he has not overcome.

About going 0 for 4 in Saturday’s 7-6 loss, his 1999 Fenway Park average dropping to .067 (1 for 15) in four games.

“I’m not a happy person, I don’t feel good, and I’m not going to feel good until spring training next year,” Vaughn said. “I haven’t taken anyone out at second base all season. I haven’t run the bases. I wake up in the morning and it takes a lot to get me going. I feel like I’ve been bound up. I just want to get strong again.”

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Angel right-hander Ramon Ortiz’s dream of starting against his idol, Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez, didn’t come true this weekend, but the two did hold a mini-summit of Dominican pitchers, in which the veteran Martinez counseled the youngster Ortiz on a variety of subjects, including pacing yourself over the winter and the importance of mastering English.

Martinez came away even more impressed with the up-and-coming Angel than he was after watching Ortiz’s first two big league starts on television.

“He has the desire to be on the mound and he has the guts, and that’s where he resembles me,” said Martinez, who leads the league in wins (18), earned-run average (2.40) and strikeouts (231). “You can’t expect him to pitch like me every day, but if he stays healthy he’ll win many games.”

Vaughn calls Ortiz “Little Pedro” because Ortiz (6 feet, 165 pounds) and Martinez (5-11, 170) are so similar in stature and pitching styles, each with an explosive fastball, nasty slider and changeup--Martinez a spectacular one and Ortiz a developing one.

After watching Ortiz limit Chicago to one run on four hits in eight innings Aug. 19 and Toronto to two runs on six hits in seven innings Tuesday night, Martinez had to agree with Vaughn’s nickname.

“He kind of looks like me,” said Martinez, who plans to work with Ortiz on his changeup. “We’re about the same size, we throw the same way. It’s weird. . . . Maybe scouts will start looking for small guys like us. But you still have to have the arm.”

TONIGHT

ANGELS’ TIM BELCHER (5-7, 6.55 ERA) vs. RED SOX’S PAT RAPP (5-5, 4.36 ERA)

Fenway Park, 10 a.m. PDT

TV--Channel 9. Radio--KLAC (570), XPRS (1090)

Update--In the first two games of this series, the Angels had leads of 3-0 Friday night and 4-1 Saturday but could not hold them. Center fielder Jim Edmonds reported no damage after coming within inches of making a spectacular diving catch of Jason Varitek’s third-inning, three-run double into the right-center-field gap Saturday. Edmonds, who had surgery in April to repair torn cartilage in his right shoulder, landed hard on his chest but remained in the game. Shortstop Gary DiSarcina, who missed four games last week because of a sore shoulder, has made a strong recovery, making several fine defensive plays and throws against the Red Sox.