Angels Turn Up Intensity

It’s all hypothetical, of course, since the Angels haven’t played a postseason game in 15 years. If you want to describe a playoff atmosphere at Edison Field, use your imagination.

Or check with a friend who attended the Angels’ 6-2 victory over the Yankees Friday. That friend might be hoarse this morning. In an August game with October intensity, the Angels scored four times in the seventh inning to defeat the defending World Series champions before a rowdy, raucous and rollicking sellout crowd of 43,489.

The Angels batted around in the decisive inning, scoring the tying run on a double by Darin Erstad and the winning runs on a single by Garret Anderson. The normally docile Angel fans came alive, shouting and stomping and shoving their rally monkeys in the faces of the sizable and suddenly silent contingent of Yankee partisans.

Jarrod Washburn pitched heroically for the first six innings, and three relievers blanked the Yankees for the final three as the Angels closed within five games of the Oakland Athletics in the American League wild-card race. With two out in the ninth inning and two strikes on Nick Johnson, the fans roared and stood as Al Levine fired the third strike that secured the victory.

The Angels are 3-2 against the Yankees this season and have not lost a season series to New York in four years.

If this game had been played in October, Alfonso Soriano would be on the back pages of the New York tabloids this morning with a disparaging headline next to his picture. He was picked off base in the fourth inning and thrown out at third base in the ninth, but his most consequential gaffe of the evening occurred in the field.

The Yankees led, 2-1, when Scott Spiezio started the seventh inning with a pop fly to Soriano. The second baseman misread the ball and let it drop--with right fielder Paul O’Neill standing right behind him--and Spiezio scooted into second with a double.

Bengie Molina, with hits in 11 of his last 12 at-bats, singled Spiezio to third. But Benji Gil lined out and David Eckstein popped out, so Yankee starter Andy Pettitte should have been out of the inning.

Thanks to Soriano: Erstad, batting .152 against Pettitte, doubled home the tying run. Anderson singled home two runs, and Pettitte was done before the inning was. Pinch-hitter Orlando Palmeiro singled home another run.

And, for good measure, Jeff DaVanon, who had not played in 11 days when he entered the game as a pinch-runner in the seventh, hit a home run in the eighth.

If this game had been played in October, on Fox, Washburn would be a nationally acclaimed hero this morning.

He was not great, not in the sense of dominating the other team. However, in terms of vanquishing the relentless enemy time and time again, he was indeed great.

Washburn worked six innings, all with some degree of distress, and gave up two runs. He gave up 11 hits, and yet he came tantalizingly close to not giving up a run.

The Yankees got two on with two out in the first inning, but Washburn struck out David Justice.

They scored once in the second inning, but only because Washburn was betrayed by his defense. Washburn had O’Neill picked off first base, but Spiezio’s relay to Eckstein pulled the shortstop off the bag for an error. Still, when Clay Bellinger flied to center field, that should have been the third out, but Erstad broke the wrong way and apparently lost the ball in the twilight, allowing O’Neill to score and Bellinger to reach third base with a triple.

In the third inning, the Yankees got runners on second and third with one out, but Washburn got Justice to pop up and Jorge Posada to ground out. In the fourth, the only inning in which the Yankees did not advance a runner into scoring position against him, he picked off Soriano.

In the fifth, the Yankees got runners on first and third with one out, but Washburn got Derek Jeter to ground out and Bernie Williams to hit into an inning-ending double play.

In the sixth inning, with Washburn pitching from a rare windup, Justice led off with a home run.