Angels Exhibit Their Split Personality

The Angels felt neither good nor bad about themselves after 6 hours and 36 minutes of baseball Sunday. They beat the Baltimore Orioles, 9-4, in the first game of a day-night doubleheader in Camden Yards but lost the nightcap, 5-1.

Runs flowed like red wine in an Italian restaurant in the first game, as the Angels extended their win streak to a season-high six games, but were so hard to come by in the second game, the Angels tried to steal one--Darin Erstad was tagged out trying to swipe home in the third inning.

Angel relief pitchers shined in the first game, as Ben Weber, who pitched out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the fifth inning, and Lou Pote combined for five shutout innings, but the bullpen imploded in the nightcap, as Toby Borland failed to hold a 1-0, sixth-inning lead and gave up four runs.

Starting pitcher Scott Schoeneweis struggled so much in the opener he called himself a “missing part of the puzzle,” while Game 2 starter Pat Rapp was simply puzzled after being pulled with two outs in the sixth inning, no one on base and a 1-0 lead.

Rapp pitched out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam himself, striking out Jay Gibbons, Cal Ripken and Melvin Mora to end the fourth. Adam Kennedy’s RBI single snapped a scoreless tie in the top of the sixth, and Rapp got Chris Richard to bounce into a double play in the bottom of the sixth.

But after Rapp fell behind, 2-0, on Jeff Conine, Angel Manager Mike Scioscia came to the mound for the third time in the game and pulled the right-hander, who had given up three hits, walked five and thrown 96 pitches.

Borland, a journeyman right-hander who was called up from triple-A Salt Lake Saturday and was making his first big league appearance since June 30, 1998, walked Conine and gave up a two-run homer to Gibbons. Baltimore added three insurance runs off Borland in the eighth.

All the while, Rapp stewed.

“I wasn’t ticked off, but that’s only the second time in my career I’ve ever been pulled with no one on and a 2-0 count, and the other time I needed back surgery,” Rapp said. “He thought I had had enough. You never know how much more you have, but if you’re not left in, how do you ever find out?”

Scioscia said Rapp, whose 3-9 record would be better with more run support, was laboring. He threw 30 pitches in the fourth and struggled with his mechanics in the fifth. Rapp thought he was more a victim of bad stadium radar-gun readings than bad mechanics.

“He came out in the fifth inning and asked if I was OK, because the gun said 80 mph,” Rapp said. “The same inning, [Oriole starter] Jason Johnson’s readings went from 91-94 mph to 86-87 mph, so I think something was wrong with the gun. My readings went down, and that made [Scioscia] panic about what was going on. I thought I was fine.”

Scioscia said he was more concerned with the way the ball was coming out of Rapp’s hand.

“That radar gun was screwed up all night,” he said. “This was about his one long inning, his mechanics, the way the ball was coming out of his hand. I was concerned more with his health than anything else.”

Rapp said he could understand Scioscia’s reasoning. To a degree.

“I can see it from his side--we finally get a run, he sees 80-81 on the gun and doesn’t think I have my good stuff,” Rapp said. “It’s a close game, we need wins, and he has to make a quick decision. It just backfired on him this time.”

One other Scioscia decision--to place a higher priority on the long-term health of his bullpen than on one game--played a key role in the nightcap.

Scioscia would not let overworked closer Troy Percival pitch Sunday, and he didn’t want setup man Shigetoshi Hasegawa, who is still gaining arm strength after being diagnosed with a slight tear in his shoulder, to pitch on consecutive days.

He needed Al Levine for the ninth inning and left-hander Mike Holtz for the eighth, so instead of using Holtz against Gibbons, who bats left-handed, in the sixth, he left Borland in the game.

“We didn’t have the luxury of spotting Holtz that early in the game,” Scioscia said. “We didn’t have the opportunity for a lot of bullpen matchups.”

That wasn’t a problem in the opener. The Angels used a four-run seventh to break the game open, as Shawn Wooten’s RBI single and Scott Spiezio’s three-run triple turned a 5-4 lead into a 9-4 advantage.

But it was the relief work of Weber and Pote that won the opener and helped preserve the bullpen.

Weber replaced Schoeneweis with a 5-4 lead, no outs and the bases loaded in the fifth and got Conine to bounce into a third-to-home-to-first double play and Mike Kinkade to ground to second.

“Getting out of that inning with a tie game would have been great,” Scioscia said. “Getting out of it with a one-run lead was incredible.”

The Orioles gift-wrapped the Angels’ four-run seventh. David Eckstein and Troy Glaus opened with walks, and Erstad hit a one-hop smash to second that should have been a double play.

But second baseman Jerry Hairston failed to field the ball, and the Angels loaded the bases on the error. Wooten singled in a run, and Spiezio cleared the bases with a triple to right-center.

“I think, conservatively, seven of the nine runs they scored we gave them,” Oriole Manager Mike Hargrove said. “There were a number of times we really shot ourselves in the foot.”