Glaus’ Streak May Be Brief

It’s not the shoes, so it must be the undershorts. How else to explain Angel third baseman Troy Glaus’ recent offensive surge, which included a double and a home run in the Angels’ 5-1 victory over the Minnesota Twins before an Edison Field crowd of 17,003 Tuesday night?

As Glaus was getting dressed before Monday night’s game, Mo Vaughn took one glance at the former UCLA standout’s sparkling Bruin-gold sliding shorts and tore into Glaus.

“Get that UCLA [stuff] outta here!” Vaughn screamed, attracting the attention of several teammates. “Put away the yearbook. This is the big leagues, kid.”

A somewhat chagrined Glaus peeled off the gold shorts, pulled on some white ones and got two hits against the Twins. As superstitious as players are, there was no doubt what shorts Glaus was wearing Tuesday night.

“The white ones,” he said.

Glaus may burn his old UCLA shorts the way he’s hitting now--he doubled to left and scored on Andy Sheets’ sacrifice fly for the Angels’ first run in the third inning, and he blasted his seventh home run in the seventh to help the Angels remain 6 1/2 games behind the first-place Texas Rangers.

Garret Anderson also snapped an 0-for-15 skid with a run-scoring double in the fourth, Todd Greene had an RBI single in the fourth, and Randy Velarde added a bases-empty home run in the eighth to back the superb pitching of Ken Hill.

The American League’s leader in walks, Hill (2-4) threw his best game of the season, coming within one strike of a shutout before Corey Koskie’s home run on a full-count pitch with two outs in the ninth.

Hill gave up five hits, walked three and struck out six in 8 2/3 innings, throwing 123 pitches before giving way to Mark Petkovsek, who needed one pitch to retire Torii Hunter on a game-ending fly-ball out.

His only real trouble came in the fifth, when he walked Doug Mientkiewicz and Javier Valentin, the Twins’ eighth and ninth hitters, to open the inning. Hill got Todd Walker to ground into a 4-6-3 double play and Denny Hocking on a comebacker to end the inning.

“His command was good, his fastball was good, he threw his slider and splitter behind in the count,” Manager Terry Collins said. “That’s the Ken Hill we know. He’s had two or three games where he’s pitched well enough to win. It’s nice to see him get a few runs to work with.”

Glaus could take credit for two of those runs on a night in which he went two for two to raise his average to .239, which won’t earn him an All-Star berth but should secure his spot with the Angels.

Going into this past weekend, it appeared Glaus might be on the verge of a demotion to triple-A Edmonton after going nine for 85 with 27 strikeouts and three RBIs in 23 games from April 30 to last Thursday, his average plummeting from .359 to .226.

The only thing that seemed to be keeping Glaus in the big leagues was his Gold Glove-caliber defense, which Angel coaches believe has saved the Angels several runs per week.

“The hard part to figure out is what’s best for the team and what’s best for him,” Collins said of Glaus, 22. “This kid has a bright future. We want to make sure he keeps moving forward, not backward.

“Troy is swinging the bat much better,” he added. “He’s not really trying to muscle the ball. He’s shortened his swing up, changed his stance a bit, and he’s seeing the ball well.”