Players Are Ready for Some Road Cooking

Despite Sunday’s emotional 7-6 victory over the Yankees, the Angels are probably glad to be embarking today on a six-game trip to Kansas City and Minnesota, where they’ll attempt to regain the road-field advantage that helped propel them into the wild-card race in July and August.

No more “Let’s Go Yankees” chants in Edison Field. No more boos when your pitcher intentionally walks a visiting player in a key situation. No more cheers when the opposing closer enters the game.

That all ended with Sunday’s 10-inning victory, which salvaged the final game of a homestand in which the Angels went 3-4 against Boston and New York. The Angels, however, have won 18 of their last 23 road games.

“We’ve hit some bumps in the road at home,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said, not even realizing how much he sounded like Yogi Berra. “But these guys will bounce back.”

Jorge Fabregas keyed Sunday night’s comeback with a rally-starting double off Yankee closer Mariano Rivera in the bottom of the ninth, but with two strikes, he couldn’t tell if he was in the South Bronx or Anaheim.

“It felt like I was in Yankee Stadium there,” Fabregas said. “You hate to see that. It’s kind of sad when you’re up there and the fans want a punch-out. We’ve got to win these fans over so they cheer for us.”

Garret Anderson, who provided the game-winning hit with an RBI double in the 10th, doesn’t think that will ever happen.

“There’s no winning them over,” Anderson said. “Those are Yankee fans from back East, and you don’t change that history. All you can do is beat them and shut them up.”

*

Third baseman Troy Glaus, who has eight hits with one home run and four RBIs in his last 55 at-bats and has been bothered by a sore right wrist for the past month, did not start Sunday, ending his string of 57 consecutive starts.

Glaus, however, entered the game as a pinch-runner in the seventh inning, played third base the final two innings and came within a few feet of a game-tying home run in the ninth, flying out to the wall in center.

The Angels also made a roster move after Sunday’s game, optioning reliever Mark Lukasiewicz to triple-A Salt Lake in order to bolster their bench with a position player today or Tuesday.

The Angels had been carrying 12 pitchers for several weeks, but Scioscia believes they can get by with 11 pitchers until Saturday, when teams are allowed to expand their rosters to 40 players.

*

After former UCLA basketball Coach John Wooden visited Edison Field Saturday, former Angel Manager Gene Mauch visited Scioscia and Yankee Manager Joe Torre Sunday.

Mauch was asked what he thought about the incident in Saturday’s Cleveland-Seattle game, when Indian shortstop Omar Vizquel almost sparked a bench-clearing brawl after asking that Mariner reliever Arthur Rhodes remove off his diamond earrings.

“It didn’t take that much to bother me when I was hitting,” Mauch said.

“I’d see a light bulb up on a hill a few miles beyond the center-field wall in Edmonton and that would bother me. But I never saw a ... earring when I played, so I don’t know what to think about that.”

*

Angel General Manager Bill Stoneman spoke over the weekend with Ralph Nelson, baseball’s vice president of umpiring, about the controversial call at second base involving Benji Gil Thursday night against the Red Sox.

Nelson told Stoneman he wanted to review several tapes of the play, in which umpire Chris Guccione ruled Gil was off the second-base bag while attempting to turn a double play, before getting back to the Angels.