Ugly Victory for Dickson

The evening did not begin very well for pitcher Jason Dickson on Tuesday. Nor did it end very well. But Dickson was sharp in between, and that was enough for the right-hander to beat the Blue Jays and improve to 2-0.

Dickson, who sat out the 1999 season because of shoulder surgery, retired 11 in a row from the first through fourth innings before fading in the sixth, when he gave up a leadoff single to Jose Cruz and consecutive home runs to Craig Grebeck, Raul Mondesi and Carlos Delgado.

The impact of that four-run rally, however, was deadened by the Angels’ nine-run outburst in the fourth and fifth innings and Dickson’s escape-artist act in the first.

Cruz opened the first with a single, and Grebeck’s hit-and-run single put runners on first and third. But Dickson struck out Mondesi, the No. 3 hitter, with a slow curve in the dirt and Delgado, the cleanup hitter, with a low-and-away off-speed pitch. Tony Batista then popped to short, and Dickson was out of trouble.

Those three outs wound up being the first of 11 straight batters Dickson would retire until Batista’s two-out single in the fourth. Dickson left in the sixth, having given up four runs and nine hits in 5 1/3 innings, striking out five and walking none.

“You get into a groove, and sometimes you fall out of a groove as quickly as you fell in,” said Dickson, who has one walk in 18 1/3 innings of his three starts. “I was cruising until the sixth, I made some mistakes, and big league players hit mistakes.”

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Manager Mike Scioscia just wanted to get reliever Shigetoshi Hasegawa an inning Tuesday night. Oh, he got him an inning all right, a 42-pitch debacle that further soiled the sagging reputation of the bullpen.

Hasegawa came into the game in the bottom of the ninth with the Angels leading, 16-4, and gave up six runs and six hits, including Cruz’s three-run homer, while retiring two batters.

Hasegawa and Mark Petkovsek are supposed to be the primary set-up men for closer Troy Percival, but Hasegawa’s earned-run average ballooned to 18.69 Tuesday, and Petkovsek is struggling with a 13.50 ERA.

Hasegawa was so bad Tuesday that Scioscia had to bring in Lou Pote to get the final out with two on in the ninth. That may have been just what Pote needed to boost his confidence.

Pote couldn’t find the right release point for his sinking fastball, so instead of inducing ground balls, like he did when he went 1-1 with a 2.15 ERA and three saves in the last two months of 1999, he has been giving up home runs, like he did in his previous three games before Tuesday.

“I don’t know if I’m running out of time, but I’ve got to get my sinker down,” Pote said. “I’m working myself into too many hitter’s counts.”

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While his teammates were busy bashing the Blue Jays for 16 runs and 19 hits Tuesday, cleanup batter Tim Salmon was having another miserable night, going 0 for 6 with four strikeouts. Salmon is batting .178 with one RBI, which came on a home run in his first at-bat of the season. . . . Shortstop Keith Johnson, who replaced Benji Gil in the sixth inning Tuesday, got his first major league hit, a single, in the ninth. . . . The Angels and Blue Jays combined to throw 381 pitches Tuesday, and the teams combined for 11 runs and 12 hits in the ninth inning.

TONIGHT

ANGELS’ KEN HILL (1-2, 4.80 ERA) vs. BLUE JAYS’ DAVID WELLS (1-1, 4.50 ERA)

SkyDome, Toronto, 4 p.m.

Radio--KIK-FM (94.3), KCTD (1540), XPRS (1090).

* Update--Hill is completely recovered from the stomach flu that ailed him in his last start, when the right-hander gave up five runs and five hits in 3 2/3 innings of a 9-4 loss to Chicago on Friday night. Hill has a 1-5 record and 5.51 ERA against the Blue Jays. Wells’ back stiffened up in his last start, when he gave up six runs in the first inning against Seattle on Friday and didn’t make it to the second inning, but he said Tuesday that he felt fine.