Angels Strand Erstad

Darin Erstad was out there, on base, as he has been for the last month.

He had three more hits and he walked once, but he did not score a run.

As the Angels continued to alternate wins and losses, they await full participation from the middle of their order, which had its opportunities to stay with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays but just left Erstad, among others, out there.

The Devil Rays defeated the Angels, 7-3, before 16,144 Thursday night at Edison Field, where Mo Vaughn, Tim Salmon and Garret Anderson were hitless in 11 at-bats, and where rookie starter Ramon Ortiz again was spent by the sixth inning.

In his fourth start, Ortiz (1-2) was effective if somewhat wasteful, mixing lively fastballs with dead-looking changeups. He threw too many pitches--93 in five-plus innings--but gave up only two earned runs and another on a Vaughn throwing error.

Reliever Al Levine gave up three runs in the sixth inning. He walked the first and third batters he faced and they both scored. Gerald Williams had a two-run single and Greg Vaughn singled home another run, so a deficit that seemed manageable at 3-1 became steep at 6-1, then overwhelming in the eighth inning at 7-1.

Devil Ray starter Dwight Gooden (2-0) gave up four hits and a run in five innings. The Angels were 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position against Gooden, including consecutive strikeouts by Vaughn and Salmon with two on in the fifth.

In the long term, the Angels seek consistency and efficiency from Ortiz, qualities that would keep their erratic bullpen out of things until late in games. Only once in four starts has he pitched to the end of the sixth inning, presumably a consideration when Tim Belcher returns from the disabled list to claim a place in the rotation.

“He’s making progress with some things,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said of Ortiz. “His command has to step up to reach that potential.

“He’s not pitching efficient at all. That’s where he is right now. To reach his potential a couple things have to click for him.”

There is a lot of that going around. The Angels got into the Devil Ray bullpen in the sixth inning as well, and made nothing of it until the ninth.

The problem for the Angels was, Erstad would not have enough at-bats to change the outcome.

Erstad singled three times and drove in a run in the ninth inning, enhancing a month that already qualified as phenomenal.

He arrived in the bottom of the first inning with a .456 batting average, nearly 70 points better than John Olerud, the American League’s next-best hitter, and four points better than Vladimir Guerrero, who led the National League.

Among his feats of April, Erstad has 15 multi-hit games, the most since Dave Winfield had 15 for the San Diego Padres in 1979. Erstad also has 44 hits, the most in the American League going back 11 years and equaling the most in any month by an Angel.

“The guy’s doing everything,” Scioscia said. “It doesn’t really surprise me. This guy’s an All-Star caliber player. Even by those standards he’s having a great month.”

How much is a month at .468 helping to erase the bad habits and bad memories of his disastrous third major-league season? Last year, Erstad didn’t hit even .300 in any month.

In the first inning against Gooden Thursday night, Erstad hit a chopper that Gooden deflected to shortstop Kevin Stocker. As Erstad churned down the line, Stocker dropped the ball.

Hit No. 42? Or error?

Ed Munson, sage official scorer, announced hit, a 1 went up on the scoreboard, and the crowd actually cheered the decision.

In the third inning, Erstad plunged into the stands to catch a foul ball hit by Stocker. He reached five feet into the crowd, craned between bodies, crashed into the fence and crumpled to the warning track. As third-base umpire Doug Eddings raced down the line, Erstad held the ball aloft in his bare hand.