Angels Make Progress in Uphill Battle to .500

It can’t be very comforting for the Angels knowing that even if they had played .900 baseball over the last 10 games, they still would have lost ground to the first-place Seattle Mariners in the American League West.

As it is, the Angels have won six of their past nine, including Saturday night’s 3-2 victory over the Kansas City Royals before 26,469 at Edison Field, a monumental achievement for a team that has had as much trouble climbing to the .500 mark as Sisyphus had rolling that big stone up the hill.

But despite their solid nine-game string and a winning streak that reached three when Garret Anderson broke a 2-2 tie with an RBI single in the eighth inning, the Angels slipped from 13 games back on May 25 to 16 games back.

That’s because the Mariners extended their win streak to 10 Saturday night, improving their major league-best record to 42-12, while the Angels were winning six of nine and pulling to within two games (26-28) of .500.

“Right now, we can’t concern ourselves with what they’re doing,” Angel center fielder Darin Erstad said of the Mariners. “They’re playing lights-out baseball. When they win, we have to win. We have to stay within striking distance for when we play them again.”

As good as the Mariners are, it’s scary to think how good they’d be if they still had All-Star shortstop Alex Rodriguez. Erstad, however, doesn’t think baseball’s $252-million man would have made a big difference.

“I don’t think they’d be any better,” Erstad said, “because their pitching is phenomenal.”

What does that make Angel pitching?

Seattle pitchers have been dominant, but through 54 games, Angel pitchers have allowed 234 runs, just 11 more than Mariner pitchers (223). The difference between the teams: Seattle is hitting .281 and has scored 325 runs compared to the Angels’ .262 average and 239 runs.

“The differences are on the offensive end,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “Our pitching has been tremendous.”

Scott Schoeneweis did nothing to tarnish that reputation Saturday night, giving up two runs on seven hits in eight innings to improve to 5-3. Closer Troy Percival added a scoreless ninth, recording his 13th save and lowering his earned-run average to 0.42.

Erstad sparked the winning rally in the eighth with a one-out single up the middle off Royal starter Chad Durbin that was hit so hard it probably took a chunk out of the mound.

Troy Glaus flied to the warning track in center for the second out, but with Tim Salmon batting, Erstad stole second and advanced to third when catcher A.J. Hinch’s one-hop throw squirted into center field.

Salmon walked, and Anderson followed with a hard liner to right that Salmon narrowly avoided as he was about to take off for second. Erstad scored the go-ahead run and Salmon took third, but Kansas City reliever Jason Grimsley replaced Durbin and retired Wally Joyner on a grounder to the mound.

Schoeneweis, who has pitched into the seventh inning in 10 of his 11 starts, hit a few early bumps when Carlos Beltran opened the game with a single and Rey Sanchez bunted for a single, extending his hitting streak to 20 games.

Mike Sweeney’s bunt advanced the runners, and Schoeneweis pitched around cleanup batter Jermaine Dye, walking him on four pitches to load the bases. Joe Randa followed with an RBI fielder’s choice for a 1-0 lead.

Salmon tied it in the second when he belted Durbin’s hanging curve over the wall in left-center for his sixth homer of the season. David McCarty’s homer in the fourth gave Kansas City a 2-1 lead, but the Angels countered in the bottom of the fourth when Glaus walked and Anderson and Wally Joyner each singled, with Joyner’s hit to right scoring Glaus for a 2-2 tie.

One more run in the eighth, and the Angels were within two games of .500, a plateau they haven’t been at since they were 6-6 on April 15.

“That would look nice in the standings, but we’re not going to pop any corks when we get to .500,” Scioscia said. “Seattle is still riding that wave. We have to play the kind of consistent baseball that hopefully we’re starting to play and put up wins.”