ANGELS REPORT : Losing Streak Ends at Nine

At least Terry Collins had the satisfaction of knowing his last move as Angel manager worked. Collins hoped his resignation Friday would “trigger some life in the team,” and it did--the Angels ended a nine-game losing streak with an 8-2 victory over the Yankees before 35,782 in Edison Field.

Mo Vaughn’s two-run home run off Andy Pettitte and Gary DiSarcina’s two-run double off reliever Ramiro Mendoza highlighted a five-run seventh inning, as the Angels turned a 3-2 game into an 8-2 advantage. DiSarcina, Todd Greene and Garrett Anderson had three hits to pace a 15-hit attack.

Tim Belcher gave up two runs on eight hits in 5 1/3 innings and got relief help from Mike Magnante, who got Tino Martinez to hit into a 1-6-3 double play to end the sixth, and Mark Petkovsek, who recovered from Tuesday night’s shelling in Cleveland to strike out Derek Jeter with the bases loaded to end the seventh.

Angel left-hander Juan Alvarez, making his second big league appearance, retired the heart of the Yankee lineup--Paul O’Neill, Bernie Williams and Martinez--in order in the eighth.

After Martinez’s homer gave New York a 1-0 lead in the second, Anderson singled and scored on a double play ball in the bottom of the second. Anderson’s RBI single and Greene’s RBI double made it 3-1 in the third, but Jorge Posada’s 440-foot homer off Belcher made it 3-2 in the fifth.

Trent Durrington’s single opened a seventh inning in which the Angels had six hits and sent 10 batters to the plate.

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The Angels closed their clubhouse before the game, making players unavailable to comment on Collins’ resignation, but no one in the Yankee clubhouse was surprised.

“Not from a standpoint of all the things I heard,” said Yankee utility player Jim Leyritz, who played for Collins and the Angels in 1997. “When you hear guys like Randy Velarde and Gary DiSarcina saying things, you know something’s wrong, because those two guys can play for anyone.”

Leyritz said he was surprised to see a television clip of Collins chewing out Velarde in the Yankee Stadium dugout on June 18 when the former Angel second baseman made an ill-advised wild throw home on a double steal.

“That’s the type of thing where you start to lose the respect of the players,” Leyritz said. “I know Terry has a temper, but that was something the veterans could take care of when I was there. If something needed to be said, [the veterans] said it.”

Yankee Manager Joe Torre, who was fired by the Mets, Braves and Cardinals and has managed three seasons in pressure-packed New York for George Steinbrenner, could empathize with Collins.

“From the stuff I’ve been hearing, I’d imagine it’s a relief for him now,” Torre said. “I’ve been through some of that stuff. You get tired of it. Even though it’s a shot to your ego and you feel like a failure, when it happens, there’s a sense of relief.”

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The mounting losses since the All-Star break may not have reflected more negatively on Collins than his perceived loss of control in the clubhouse.

Angel players, many secure with long-term, multimillion-dollar contracts, felt free to criticize Collins--as well as their teammates--without fear of reprisal.

“As much as you talk to them and say this has to stay in the clubhouse . . . if you have problems at home with your wife or girlfriend or your best friends, whatever it is, you handle it between yourselves,” Collins said. “We haven’t been able to do that, and it got to be the focus the last month and a half.”

Collins said he managed Astro teams on which players didn’t like each other and some didn’t like him, “but the bottom line is they played, and that’s what you’ve got to have,” Collins said. “The manager today has one hammer, the lineup card, that’s it. The players have to want to win.”

TONIGHT

ANGELS’ RAMON ORTIZ (1-1, 3.00 ERA) vs. YANKEES’ HIDEKI IRABU (10-5, 4.60 ERA)

Edison Field, 1 p.m.

TV--Channel 11. Radio--KLAC (570), XPRS (1090).

* Update--Angel reliever Mike James, struggling to recover from shoulder and elbow surgeries that have sidelined him since May 1998, was given his unconditional release Friday. James, who had his best season in 1996, going 5-5 with a 2.67 earned-run average in 69 games, was in the final year of a three-year, $1.8-million contract. He continued to experience arm problems during a minor league rehabilitation assignment in August, going 0-2 with a 10.80 ERA in seven games for triple-A Edmonton and 0-0 with a 5.79 ERA in three games for Class-A Lake Elsinore.