Percival’s Yardwork Is Sloppy

Troy Percival calls Camden Yards “one of my favorite parks in the American League,” but the relationship between the Angel closer and Baltimore’s cozy park is hardly reciprocal.

In fact, Percival may want to strike Camden Yards from his buddy list after another devastating loss there Tuesday night, when the Orioles scored two runs off him in the bottom of the ninth inning for a 7-6 victory before a crowd of 34,923.

Jeff Conine drew a leadoff walk after falling behind, 0-2, Cal Ripken hit an RBI double, and Mike Bordick won it with a bases-loaded flare to right against a two-outfielder alignment that was designed to prevent a grounder from getting through the infield.

It wasn’t quite the dagger Bordick stuck into Percival’s side two years ago, when the diminutive Baltimore shortstop hit the 11th pitch of a grueling at-bat off Camden Yards’ left-field foul pole in the bottom of the ninth for a game-tying, two-run home run on Sept. 12, 1998.

The Orioles went on to win that game, 3-2, reducing the Angels’ lead in the American League West at the time to one game. The Angels eventually lost the division to the Texas Rangers.

Tuesday night’s loss wasn’t nearly as heartbreaking, this being early May, but it did waste another impressive Angel comeback--they erased a 5-0 deficit to take a 6-5 lead in the seventh--and dropped Percival’s career record in Camden Yards to 0-2 with a 5.54 earned-run average and his career mark against the Orioles to 0-4 with a 6.08 ERA.

“I felt good, but I wasn’t throwing good pitches,” said Percival, whose string of eight scoreless innings since April 8 came to an end. “I was trying to go down and away, but I was leaving everything over the middle.”

Well, not everything. After Ripken’s game-tying double, which gave Percival his first blown save of the season, Percival walked pinch-hitter Harold Baines intentionally, and the Orioles loaded the bases on Charles Johnson’s single.

Angel Manager Mike Scioscia moved left fielder Darin Erstad to the infield and had outfielders Garret Anderson and Tim Salmon shade toward the gaps. But Bordick sliced a single toward the line in right for the game winner and his league-leading 30th run batted in.

“The pitch Bordick hit was probably the best one I threw all night, a fastball down and away,” Percival said. “All he’s trying to do is put the ball in play, do anything but strike out, and he had a pretty good chance.”

The Angels didn’t appear to have much of a chance after falling behind, 5-0, after five innings, but they stormed back with two runs in the sixth on Bengie Molina’s two-out, two-run single, which snapped an 0-for-16 skid, and four runs in the seventh.

Erstad opened the seventh with a walk, and Adam Kennedy followed with a fly ball to deep left-center. B.J. Surhoff, whose diving catch of Orlando Palmeiro’s flare toward the line to end the sixth saved at least one run, drifted to the wall and had room to make the catch.

But the ball glanced off his glove, snapping Surhoff’s 250-game errorless streak dating to July 18, 1998, and the Angels had runners on second and third. Mo Vaughn flied to left, too shallow for Erstad to tag.

Salmon, who doubled in the first and singled in the sixth, blasted Sidney Ponson’s first pitch into the left-field seats for a three-run home run and a 5-5 tie. After Anderson’s strikeout, Troy Glaus ripped his team-leading eighth homer of the season to left for a 6-5 lead.

Angel starter Scott Schoeneweis, who gave up five runs--four earned--on six hits in 7 2/3 innings, retired five consecutive batters in the seventh and eighth, reliever Mark Petkovsek got cleanup batter Albert Belle to pop to second to end the eighth, and the Angels handed the ball to Percival.

Percival, who had given up only three hits, struck out nine and walked one in eight previous innings, could not hold the lead, though, and the game ended in frustration for the Angels.

“But we’ll be right back [today],” Vaughn said. “Last year, when we got down, it was all over, and when we lost a tough game it would carry over to the next day. That’s not the situation this year. We get down, we come back. One thing this team does is it responds.”