Angel Uprising Is Royal Pain

Mike Scioscia, rookie manager, looked back over 8 1/2 innings and nearly 4 1/2 hours late Saturday night and pushed his hand through his hair.

His Angels had won again, had hit again, had somehow found one more good pitch than the other team had.

“The game turned so many times,” he said, “I don’t think it was one play that did it.”

The Angels defeated the Kansas City Royals, 9-8, before 30,869 at Edison Field, where Mo Vaughn hit his sixth and seventh home runs of the homestand, his 14th and 15th of the season, and Scioscia’s seven pitchers were barely better than the Royals’ four.

“You’re looking at two clubs that have shown they have the ability to come back,” Scioscia said. “We went toe to toe.

“The guys in this clubhouse are composed and poised, not only to come back, but from as far as we have.”

Saturday, it was from three runs down in the seventh inning. It didn’t even look that hard. After the Royals scored four in their seventh, the Angels scored four in theirs. Vaughn hit his second two-run homer when the inning was only two batters old, and the Angels scrapped for the other two.

The eventual game-winner rode home with Scott Spiezio, who raced from second base on Bengie Molina’s bloop single to right. Spiezio stalled for a moment at third, and 20 feet from the plate appeared as if he would be out. But first baseman Mike Sweeney’s throw was too hard and too low for catcher Jorge Fabregas.

Brett Hinchliffe, who arrived from the minor leagues Saturday to fill out the pitching staff, pitched a scoreless eighth. Troy Percival pitched the ninth for his 12th save, secured only when Sweeney grounded to third baseman Troy Glaus with a runner on first, and first baseman Vaughn brilliantly scooped a hurried throw.

It is not how they planned it. But the Angels have had difficulties getting innings out of their starting pitchers, in part because of misguided pitches and in part because four of them are on the disabled list.

So, they opened the bullpen door and had their relievers gang up on a game, beginning with right-hander Al Levine. It wound through Mike Fyhrie and Mike Holtz and Eric Weaver and Shigetosi Hasegawa (3-0) and Hinchliffe and Percival, through good matchups and bad, strategies and, perhaps, whims.

It landed, eventually, at a tie in the seventh inning, with both teams well into their bullpens. Then shortstop Benji Gil overran a possible double-play grounder, and Hasegawa could not pitch them around the error, which made the resulting four runs unearned.

It was Sweeney who crushed the three-run double to center field that handed the Royals an 8-5 lead, which would not last even an inning with relievers Paul Spoljaric and Dan Reichert (2-3). Sweeney had four hits for the fifth time in his career and drove in four runs. In the seventh inning, the Angels batted 10 men. They had three hits, drew four walks and were hit by a pitch--and scored four times.

The Angels built a 5-4 lead on home runs by Spiezio and Vaughn and a two-out, two-run single by Molina, who had two hits and drove in three runs.

Levine entered his first start since Oct. 2 and the second of his career on a loose pitch limit, and threw 81. The longest of his 14 relief outings this season is 3 2/3 innings, and the Angels preferred not to stress one of their few sound arms. Levine, who allowed four runs in 4 2/3 innings, probably will start again Thursday or Saturday, assuming his arm rebounds.

Jermaine Dye, AL player of the month in April, left the game after the first inning because of a bruised right kneecap. Before being taken for X-rays that proved negative, Dye took a hit away from Adam Kennedy at the right-field wall.

Kennedy lashed a fly ball that appeared as if it would carry over Dye’s head. Dye, however, raced to the base of the wall, lunged and made the catch. Sweeney, the first baseman, pumped his fist at the eye-catching play.

Dye, who missed three games earlier in the week because of soreness in his back, was taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange. David McCarty took his place in right field and in the Royals’ cleanup position.