Even With New Help, Angels Behind 8 Ball

Let’s get this straight: In the last eight days, Omar Olivares threw a complete game, cleanup batter Tim Salmon returned to the lineup, Ken Hill came off the disabled list and threw six shutout innings, Chuck Finley ended the worst slump of his career, the Angels had 15 hits one night, Jack McDowell came off the disabled list to throw 5 2/3 superb innings . . .

And the Angels lost eight consecutive games, going from 6 1/2 games behind Texas in the American League West to 13 1/2 back after Friday night’s 1-0 loss to the Baltimore Orioles before 43,945 in Camden Yards.

At this rate, if Tim Belcher and Jim Edmonds return soon, the Angels could be 30 games out by the middle of August.

Good news just begets bad news for the Angels, and that trend continued Friday when McDowell, in his first start since last Sept. 24, limited the Orioles to one run on six hits, struck out four and walked one in a crisp performance.

But the Angel offense, as it has so often the last two months, sputtered to a halt against right-hander Juan Guzman, who gave up six hits, all singles, in eight shutout innings.

“I don’t know what to say,” Salmon said after the Angels were shut out for the fifth time. “Every guy here has been trying to figure out how to turn this around. I’ve been here eight days, and I’m already out of solutions. Every game I’ve been in we’ve lost--some spark I’ve been. . . .

“We had a great year in 1995, and 1996 was an absolute disaster. Sometimes you get off to a bad start and it snowballs and you never come around. You see it all the time. The players here can play, but you get beat down enough times, your confidence takes a hit, and you start doubting yourself.”

At this point, the Angels are more mentally than physically drained.

“Emotionally, I’m sure a lot of guys are worn out,” Salmon said. “It’s pretty tough when you’re losing like this, because you’re constantly examining and reexamining yourself.”

The problem is, this is late July, not September, and the Angels--like the sun--have already set in the West. What do you do the next two months?

“You can’t quit,” Salmon said. “I’m still paid to play the game to win. It becomes more personal. . . . It’s a matter of pride, a true test of character. How do you respond when things go bad?”

Like McDowell, Manager Terry Collins hopes. The right-hander was sidelined for 2 1/2 months of 1998 and all of ’99 because of elbow and shoulder problems, he spurned retirement for 10 months of rehabilitation, but he burst into the Angel pitching picture with a remarkably efficient game Friday.

McDowell spotted his fastball on both corners and consistently hit 88 mph, though the Camden Yards radar gun has always seemed a little fast. He fooled several Orioles with off-speed breaking pitches. He threw aggressively, with confidence, and of his 88 pitches, 60 were strikes.

McDowell got out of a first-and-third, two-out jam in the first by retiring Harold Baines on a weak comebacker. He escaped a two-on, one-out jam in the third by getting No. 3 batter B.J. Surhoff to fly out and striking out cleanup hitter Albert Belle.

But Baines opened the fourth with a double to left-center, Will Clark singled him to third, and Cal Ripken hit a sacrifice fly to deep right for the game’s only run.

“I’m real happy with where I’m at,” McDowell said. “It’s a lot different than when I pitched in pain all of last year. That wasn’t much fun. I think all that talk of me hanging it up was to get through the season--’I only have to do this so much longer.’ But the shoulder feels fine.”

So good, in fact, that McDowell actually spoke of a future with him pitching in it.

“I certainly didn’t rehab for 10 months to pitch a few games and say goodbye,” McDowell said. “I’m 33, what the heck? I’ll see what I can get out of this. I think I had good velocity tonight. That was my ‘A’ game.”

As a team, though, the Angels deserve an “F.” Their eight-game losing streak is the longest since twin nine-game skids in the last two months of 1995, and the more things go right, the worse things get.

“Strange things can happen in this game,” Collins said, “and we’ve seen them before our eyes.”