Two Out of Three Is Bad for Frustrated Dodgers

It is too early to make predictions, draw conclusions. It is enough for now to paint it as Tim Salmon, the senior Angel in continuous service, did Saturday, saying that the atmosphere and the confidence is about the best he has known it and that “what we have going is pretty special.”

The Dodgers can’t disagree. They beat the Angels in 10 innings of the first game of this latest interleague series, the first game of the second half, only to have the Angels leave any of the emotional scars in I-5 traffic.

Impressive? Resilient? What’s new?

They are a team that has come from behind to win 22 times, 12 times in their final at-bat, and they came back from that frustrating defeat in extra innings to beat Kevin Brown Friday and Chan Ho Park Saturday, winning two of three from the Dodgers and four of six overall, and if there have been times in 40 years when the Angels have felt inferior to the Dodgers . . . well, as Mo Vaughn said, “We don’t feel inferior to anyone.”

Nor should they. The Angels are tied with Toronto for the American League wild-card lead, four back of Seattle in the West.

“We’re still climbing the ladder,” Manager Mike Scioscia said of his team’s development, but he could have added that the view is getting better, the confidence rising.

“For the first time since I’ve been here I feel I can do some of the things I could do in Boston,” Vaughn said. “I feel I can say, ‘Hey, we need to win two of three here, we need to win eight of 10.’ I know these guys well enough now, and to have them respond is a great feeling. We’re a very aggressive, very confident club right now.”

Well, consider some of the things the Angels are:

* They are a most-valuable-player candidate named Darin Erstad who had two more hits Saturday in a 6-2 victory and is on pace to set a big league record for hits in a season;

* They are an all-star third baseman in his second season named Troy Glaus and two rookie-of-the-year candidates named Bengie Molina, the catcher, and Adam Kennedy, the second baseman;

* They are three guys named Vaughn, Glaus and Garret Anderson who are on pace to hit more than 40 homers, and a closer named Troy Percival who is third in the league in saves;

* They are also a manager-of-the-year candidate in Scioscia, who has helped clear the clubhouse of last year’s turmoil and came back in this series to leave a calling card at the stadium where he used to play and against the team many thought he would manage before the new management more or less closed the door.

“I don’t put much stock in who we play and where we’re playing,” Scioscia said. “I just want us to keep playing good baseball. It doesn’t mean anything more to me personally to win two of three here. We think we have the confidence to beat anyone anywhere.”

It is a theme, and there is one other thing the Angels are. They are a group of young pitchers, scorned by so-called experts in spring training, who have stepped into a breach created by injury and inefficiency to help keep the Angels in the game, in the race.

Seth Etherton, only a year removed from USC and only a few weeks from double A, had his turn again Saturday and limited the Dodgers to one earned run on four hits in six innings. He is 4-1 in six starts--”He wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think he was ready for the challenge,” Scioscia said--and now he and Jarrod Washburn and Brian Cooper and Scott Schoeneweis are 19-11 in 40 starts, helping the Angels avoid any losing streak of longer than three games, stoppers for a team that has used 11 different starters and 20 pitchers overall and which received encouraging performances from the needed veterans, Ken Hill and Kent Bottenfield, against the Dodgers.

Pitching, of course, is critical, but it is doubtful the Angels, given the limited trade market and General Manager Bill Stoneman’s reluctance to give up his young pitchers for a more experienced, front-line starter, will deal in that category before the July 31 deadline.

The weight will continue to fall on an offense that is 30 points improved from last year and which is at the core of the Angels’ confidence.

“We have seven guys that can carry a club, and that says a lot,” Salmon said. “The pitchers know they don’t have to be perfect, and that helps their comfort and confidence.

“I don’t think even in ‘95, when we were scoring so many runs [and ultimately blowing an 11-game lead], that the offense was this good. It seems like I was the deep threat then, and now we have five or six guys who can go deep, and that makes a big difference in the attitude. We know we’re never out of a game.”

Angel batters are second in the league to Toronto in home runs and Angel pitchers lead in homers allowed. Etherton on Saturday joined a growing union of pitchers who have been tagged by Gary Sheffield, but he retained his poise, and Salmon said later he doubts that Kennedy and Glaus and Molina and the young pitchers would have blossomed as they have if exposed to the clubhouse pressure of recent Angel seasons.

He said the chemistry and clubhouse atmosphere under Scioscia and the coaching staff is the best of his seven seasons with the Angels.

“It’s just a fun place to play now,” he said. “It’s awesome. I mean, I’ve kind of been struggling all year but almost every day the hitting coach [Mickey Hatcher] comes over, pats me on the back and says how great I look up there. I know it’s not true, but it’s great to get that encouragement and be in a positive atmosphere like this.”

There are a lot of positives for the Angels, who look increasingly capable of climbing the ladder.