Angels’ Rally Is a No-Hitter

The Angels pounded out 29 hits, including seven home runs and six doubles, and scored 29 runs in victories over the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday and Thursday night.

But you know you’re really living large when you concoct a two-run, game-winning rally with exactly zero hits, as the Angels did against the Chicago White Sox on Friday night.

Tim Salmon followed two walks and a hit batsman with a tiebreaking sacrifice fly in the eighth inning, and Randy Velarde scored an insurance run on an error, lifting the Angels to a 3-1 victory before 35,053 in Edison Field.

“You win ‘em however you can,” Angel Manager Terry Collins said. “Whether it’s 13-0 or 3-2, they’re nice wins to get.”

Steve Sparks went 7 2/3 innings, giving up one run on five hits, Mark Petkovsek struck out Jeff Abbott with two on to end the eighth and snake the victory, and closer Troy Percival struck out two of three in the ninth for his fourth save.

Garret Anderson homered in the fifth, a game-tying shot off Chicago starter Jaime Navarro that put the Angels on track for their third consecutive victory since Tuesday night’s debacle, an ugly, error-filled, 10-1 loss to Toronto.

“We may look up in a month and think that maybe we needed to be embarrassed to get focused,” Collins said. “These guys are bearing down the whole game. They’re talking on the bench about how guys are pitching them. It’s been impressive.”

The Angel eighth was indicative of that. With the game tied, 1-1, Orlando Palmeiro opened with a walk off Navarro, and Velarde, after fouling off a sacrifice attempt, drew another walk.

Bill Simas replaced Navarro, and drilled Mo Vaughn in the ribs on his first pitch to load the bases. Vaughn glared at Simas--”I just flame up sometimes,” he later said--but made no motion toward the mound.

That brought up Salmon, the Angels’ hottest hitter this season, and the cleanup batter came through, belting a 3-1 pitch to deep center, scoring Palmeiro.

“There was no doubt in my mind Tim was going to get that guy home,” Collins said. “He’s been the go-to guy his whole career here. I feel really good with Tim Salmon up in those situations.”

With Velarde running from second on a full-count pitch, Erstad then struck out, and a good throw would have nailed Velarde by at least 10 feet. But catcher Brook Fordyce’s throw sailed well over third baseman Greg Norton’s head and into left field, allowing Velarde to score.

The Angels managed only five hits, a stark contrast to their offensive outbursts of the previous two nights, but there were no complaints in the clubhouse.

“You’ve got to win these types of games, where you put together some good at-bats and do the little things, because you’re not going to score 10 runs every night,” Vaughn said. “When you get to the playoffs you have to do that a lot.”

After opening the season with three losses, Sparks has been much better in his last two starts, giving up three runs, one of them earned, on 10 hits in 13 1/3 innings, but he still has no victories to show for it.

The right-hander’s 7 2/3-inning stint Friday night was the longest by an Angel starter this season, but he was pulled after walking Norton and Paul Konerko with two out in the eighth.

“I gave us a lot of innings, that’s my job every time out,” said Sparks, who gave up Konerko’s RBI single in the fourth but pitched out of a two-on, no-out jam after Konerko’s hit. “I got locked in with my knuckleball and changed speeds as much as I could.”

Navarro, however, was just as good.

“That’s as good a game as I’ve seen him pitch in this league,” Collins said. “He had great velocity, changed speeds, and that’s why we didn’t hit him very well.”

But when you’re on a roll like the Angels have been these last three nights, who needs hits?