Angel Bats Are Silenced Again

The wheel play was on, but a wheel of fortune it wasn’t for the Angels, who bought two vowels--both E’s, one physical and one mental error--during a ninth-inning meltdown that cost them a 2-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays before 13,210 in Tropicana Field Thursday night.

Russ Johnson’s bases-loaded single with no outs off Angel reliever Shigetoshi Hasegawa provided the margin of victory, giving the Devil Rays their third win in their last at-bat in six home games against the Angels and spoiling another outstanding performance by a young Angel starter, as Jarrod Washburn gave up one run on two hits in seven innings.

But Johnson never would have had a chance to snap a 1-1 tie and walk off a winner had the Angel defense not gone haywire in the ninth.

John Flaherty opened the inning with a single and was replaced by pinch-runner Miguel Cairo. Steve Cox followed with a one-hopper that bounced high into the air and was about to take a second hop just to the right of the second-base bag, where Angel second baseman Adam Kennedy and the ball converged in front of Cairo.

Kennedy made an aggressive attempt for a double play, hoping to catch the ball on the run, swipe a tag on Cairo and throw to first, but the ball squirted out of his glove for an error. Instead of a double play, the Devil Rays had two on.

Up stepped Bobby Smith, and the Angels, fully expecting a bunt, put on the wheel play, in which third baseman Troy Glaus charges toward home and shortstop Benji Gil races to third in hopes of forcing the lead runner.

But Smith never squared to bunt and took the pitch. Glaus stopped between home and third, and Gil stopped between third and second, in case he had to field a ball hit to short. Cairo got a huge secondary lead, and when he saw he was about even with Gil, he took off for third and stole the base.

Smith was intentionally walked to load the bases, the Angels brought left fielder Darin Erstad to the infield, hoping to plug another hole, and Johnson foiled the strategy with a clean single over Gil’s head at short.

“That’s my responsibility, I needed to get to third,” Gil said of the broken wheel play. “Once he doesn’t square, you have to stop and play the position. Usually you have two or three steps on [the runner], but he was real close to me. Then all of a sudden, he took off. As soon as [Smith] didn’t hit it, I should have kept going to third. . . .

“It’s a funny game. I’ve never seen that happen, much less happen to me. If it comes up again, I promise you, no one will beat me.”

Tampa Bay starter Steve Trachsel, the former Troy High, Fullerton College and Cal State Long Beach right-hander, went the distance on a six-hitter, giving up his only run on Tim Salmon’s walk, Garret Anderson’s double to left and Glaus’ RBI groundout in the seventh, to improve to 5-6.

That was necessary to keep pace with Washburn, who overcame six walks to throw seven excellent innings, his only blemish Bubba Trammell’s sixth-inning homer that snapped a string of 17 consecutive scoreless innings by Angel starters Seth Etherton, Brian Cooper and Washburn.

But unlike the first two months, when the offense carried the burden for a sagging rotation, Angel bats went silent again. In their four losses to Phoenix and Tampa Bay on this trip, they scored six runs.

The Angels thought they had a run in the third when Erstad doubled and attempted to score on Scott Spiezio’s single to right. Outfielder Jose Guillen made a strong throw home, but replays showed that Flaherty, the Devil Ray catcher, tagged the sliding Erstad in the upper thigh after Erstad’s foot crossed the plate.

“He was safe. . . . It was a poor call,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “But I’m not going to pin this loss on an umpire’s call.”