Martinez’s Crushing Blow Flattens Angels

The feeling was unfamiliar for Angel reliever Al Levine. Good thing, too, because he was not a happy man in the wake of Saturday’s 5-4 loss to the Yankees.

Levine has been the poster boy for everything that has gone right for the Angel bullpen. Their success has kept Anaheim alive in the American League wild-card race.

But after being nearly perfect for the past two months, Levine slipped up in the eighth inning, making a mistake to the wrong batter in the Yankee lineup.

Trusted to protect a 4-3 lead, courtesy of Troy Glaus’ two-run homer off Mariano Rivera in the top of the eighth, Levine stumbled from almost the moment he took the ball.

With one out, Levine walked Bernie Williams on four pitches, then hung a first-pitch sinker to Tito Martinez, who sliced a low liner that barely cleared the left-field wall for a two-run homer.

Angel Manager Mike Scioscia, who had to watch the last few innings on television after he was ejected in the fifth, was kind to Levine, giving credit to Martinez for smacking a pitch that may have been “up a tad.”

But Levine, who had not given up a run since July 14 and only one in his last 21 appearances, was much tougher on himself.

“If it was a good pitch, I don’t think it would have went so far,” Levine said. “He thought it was a good pitch. It was like batting practice.”

Martinez has been on a tear. He hit a seventh-inning homer off Angel starter Jarrod Washburn on Friday night to put the Yankees ahead to stay and Saturday’s blast was his fifth in six games.

“I saw he threw four pitches to Bernie low and away,” said Martinez, “and I thought he’d do the same thing to me.”

As for Levine, he hadn’t given up a home run since May 31 when the Twins’ Chad Allen took him deep. But he still knows one when he hears it. When a reporter asked Levine if he thought the ball was headed over the wall, he replied, “it sounded pretty good.”

It was a memory he had no pleasure in reliving once the game was over.

“It’s not going to be tough to forget, but you want to win every game when you have a chance,” Levine said. “We came back to take the lead and I give it up. But tomorrow’s a new day. Take the good with the bad and learn from it.”

The Angel bullpen has been mostly great, with Levine’s blown save a rare exception. Their relievers entered Saturday’s game with an earned-run average of 2.99, trailing only the Mariners, so the Angels had to like their chances after Glaus hammered a 2-and-1 fastball from Rivera beyond the left-field wall.

The Yankees had built a 3-1 lead against starter Ismael Valdes, who gave up solo homers to Alfonso Soriano and Derek Jeter in the fifth inning. But the Angels rallied in the seventh when Tim Salmon chased Roger Clemens with a one-out single and Adam Kennedy greeted reliever Mike Stanton with a run-scoring double off the right-field wall.

With one out in the eighth and David Eckstein at first base, Yankee Manager Joe Torre summoned Rivera to face Glaus, who got lucky when Martinez couldn’t come up with his foul pop near the rolled-up tarp. One pitch later, Glaus crushed a fastball to give the Angels a 4-3 lead.

It was the fifth home run given up by Rivera in 59 1/3 innings and only his fifth blown save in 41 chances, but the Angels couldn’t finish the job. They are 48-0 when leading after eight innings, but Saturday--in an unusual twist--Levine couldn’t get them there.

“Things don’t turn your way until you get that last out of the ballgame,” Scioscia said. “Our pitching, and especially our bullpen, has been tremendous all year. They’ve been a big part of whatever success we’re having. We have to keep that in perspective. They’re going to have an occasional game where it doesn’t happen and today was one of them.”

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AL WILD CARD

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W L GB Boston 62 47 -- Cleveland 61 48 1 Oakland 60 50 2 1/2 Angels 56 54 6 1/2

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