Fallen Angels Nine Off Pace

The Angels are scheduled to play an exhibition against their double-A team at Erie, Pa., on Monday, and the tentative plan is for starters to remain in the game long enough to get one at-bat.

But after losing to the Toronto Blue Jays, 3-0, before 20,465 in SkyDome Thursday night, the Angels’ fourth straight loss and ninth in 12 games, second baseman Randy Velarde suggested a different tack for Monday.

“We’ve got to take [our frustration] out on somebody, maybe Erie,” Velarde said. “Everyone’s supposed to play one or two innings. I might ask to play nine so we can get a stinking W out of it.”

The punchless Angels now trail Texas by nine games, the largest deficit in Manager Terry Collins’ three years in Anaheim, and they are sinking so fast that even their peers have lumped them with the likes of the lowly Kansas City Royals in baseball’s gutter.

“The Angels are obviously down, and Kansas City is coming this weekend,” Toronto right fielder Shawn Green said of the prospect of the Blue Jays making a run to reach .500 by the All-Star break. “This is as good a time as any.”

That quote appeared in several Toronto newspapers Thursday, but there was no point sticking it on a bulletin board. The Angels couldn’t contest it.

“It’s embarrassing, but you get what you deserve, and we don’t deserve anything right now,” first baseman Darin Erstad said. “We’ve been getting fantastic pitching, and we’re not hitting. You have to believe it will turn around, but it’s getting to the point where enough is enough. This is ridiculous.”

So is this: The Angels (29-36) are seven games under .500, their worst record since the end of an abysmal 1996 season, when they finished 70-91. They have scored 17 runs in their last nine games and have been held to four runs or fewer in 20 of their last 22 games.

The Angels rank last in the league in runs, doubles, triples, walks, stolen bases and on-base percentage and second-to-last in batting average and hits.

Cleanup batter Garret Anderson--that title fits as well as role model Charles Barkley--is hitless in his last 30 at-bats, including a weak groundout to end the eighth with runners on first and second Thursday night. In three games in Toronto, the Angels had two hits in an inning three times.

Though Todd Greene lined two singles to left and Erstad singled sharply to center Thursday, Anderson, Greene and Erstad, the Angels’ fourth, fifth and sixth batters, have combined to hit .233 (30 for 129) with two RBIs in the last 12 games.

“We [stink] right now, that’s the bottom line,” Velarde said. “We’re flat, we’re passive, we’re going through the motions, we’re not attacking the ball. I’ve run out of adjectives to describe it.”

If the Angels had some speed, Collins might try to steal more bases. If they could get a runner on with no outs, he might bunt. If he could get a runner to third with less than two out, he might squeeze. But the Angels have put no pressure on opposing pitchers, including Blue Jay right-hander Kelvim Escobar, who gave up six hits in seven innings Thursday.

“You sit there and wonder when it’s going to happen, but maybe our attitude should be to go get it,” catcher Matt Walbeck said. “Hitting is contagious, but so is that other feeling, and that’s not good.”

Angel starter Ken Hill gave up three runs on five hits in 7 1/3 innings, but it didn’t matter. He could have pitched a shutout, and the best he would have gotten is a no-decision.

The Blue Jays built an insurmountable 1-0 lead in the third on Green’s RBI groundout, Tony Fernandez put the game out of reach with a bases-empty home run in the fourth, and Tony Batista blew the game open with a homer in the eighth. The Angels threatened in the ninth, but Toronto closer Billy Koch struck out Matt Luke with two on to end the game.

And now it’s on to New York, but that might be a good thing. The Angels have played their best baseball in Yankee Stadium, winning three of five games there last August and sweeping a three-game series in May.

“I don’t know why, but we tend to play to the level of the competition,” Erstad said. “We beat up on some good teams and then lose two or three to the Royals or the Twins. It’s been that way ever since I’ve been here.”