Angels Stall Against Mussina

Don’t try to sell Angel Manager Terry Collins on all those Baltimore Oriole tales of woe. Sure, this may be the worst team money can buy, an $84-million lemon in need of major engine work, but Collins sees a few parts worth salvaging.

Like Baltimore ace Mike Mussina, who continued his dominance of the Angels Tuesday night, giving up three runs on seven hits in eight innings to lead the Orioles to a 5-3 victory before 42,830 in Camden Yards.

And Oriole shortstop Mike Bordick, the little Angel killer who capped a game-clinching, three-run sixth inning with a two-run double off Angel ace Chuck Finley.

“They’re not playing well, but that is still a dangerous team, one that can win eight or 10 games in a row,” said Collins, whose team has lost three straight. “And we’ve always had problems in this park.”

Angel pennant hopes haven’t died in Camden Yards, but they have been knocked unconscious here the past two seasons.

The Angels took a half-game lead in the American League West into Baltimore in August 1997 and suffered three gut-wrenching, one-run losses to fall a game behind Seattle. They never held sole possession of first place the rest of that season.

Last Sept. 11, the Angels took a two-game lead into Baltimore and were swept in a three-game series, with Bordick delivering a devastating dagger in Game 2, a tying, two-run homer off Troy Percival in the ninth inning of a 3-2, 10-inning victory. Four days later, the Angel division lead was gone.

Bordick, who bats eighth or ninth and had only nine RBIs before Tuesday night, was at his giant-slaying best again. After Jeff Conine doubled, Cal Ripken walked and Rich Amaral singled Conine home in the sixth, Bordick laced a two-out, two-run double off the wall in right field to give Baltimore a 5-1 lead and knock Finley out of the game.

“I threw that pitch right where I wanted it, low and away on the black,” Finley said. “I thought it would be a nice little fly ball to right or a grounder to second. It’s very puzzling. You expect good things to happen when you make a good pitch, but it didn’t tonight.”

This has been a running theme in 1999 for Finley, whose record (2-4) easily could be reversed if he had retired a key batter or two each game, and if the Angels had averaged more than 3.6 runs in his eights starts.

“My season to this point has boiled down to about 12 pitches,” said Finley, who pitched eight innings in a 1-0 win over the New York Yankees last Wednesday.

“It’s easy to get frustrated when you look in the paper and guys are giving up six and seven runs and winning. Sometimes it’s not how you pitch, but when you pitch.”

And who you pitch against. Mussina, the right-hander with the vicious knuckle-curve, gave up Todd Greene’s bases-empty homer in the second and Randy Velarde’s two-run homer in the eighth but was otherwise untouchable, improving his career record against the Angels to 11-3 with a 3.24 earned-run average.

“That’s a pitch not many throw because it’s so difficult to command,” Collins said of Mussina’s knuckle-curve. “That’s why he’s so great. That’s why he’s so special.”

Only three Angels had hits--Greene, who made his first start in right field, had three and Velarde and Andy Sheets each had two--and the Angels continued to struggle in the absence of cleanup batter Tim Salmon.

Since Salmon sprained his left wrist May 3, Angel cleanup batters are a combined 10 for 53 (.189) with three RBIs. Third baseman Troy Glaus, though he made two outstanding defensive plays Tuesday night and continues to save runs with his glove, went 0 for 3 and now has seven hits in his last 62 at-bats. Darin Erstad’s 0-for-4 performance dropped his average to .237.

“I know Chuck gave up five runs,” Collins said, “but the way we’ve been swinging, you just can’t make a mistake.”

Finley was nearly Mussina’s equal for five innings, giving up four hits and two runs--B.J. Surhoff’s RBI single in the first and Charles Johnson’s homer in the third--but he couldn’t put away the Orioles in the sixth.

“He kept us in the game as long as he could,” Greene said, “but unless you score a couple runs for him, his luck is going to run out.”