Only Two Angel Hits Add Up to 2-1 Win

Is this all it takes to beat The Greatest Team on Earth? Two hits, one of them a 27-hopper to right field?

It seems unfathomable, but that was the extent of the Angel offense in a 2-1 victory over the Seattle Mariners Saturday night before a sellout crowd of 45,430 at Safeco Field.

Angel leadoff batter David Eckstein, all 5 feet 8, 170 pounds of him, lined a game-winning home run to left field in the sixth inning, and catcher Shawn Wooten hit a well-placed RBI single in the fifth to give hard-luck pitcher Pat Rapp (2-7) his first win since May 1.

Pumped-up closer Troy Percival capped a superb relief effort with 1 1/3 scoreless innings, hitting 100 mph on the Safeco speed gun several times, for his 18th save, as the Angels moved to within six games of Minnesota in the American League wild-card race.

“To win a game with two hits, and the smallest guy on the field hits a game-winning home run . . . that’s pretty amazing,” Angel right fielder Tim Salmon said. “Maybe that’s what we needed for Rapper.”

Rapp, who was 1-5 over his last 12 starts despite a 3.55 earned-run average in those games, limited the Mariners to one run and three hits in 5 2/3 innings, overcoming five walks in a gritty performance that was needed to keep pace with soft-serving Mariner left-hander Jamie Moyer.

But the right-hander’s pitch count reached 105 after walking Mike Cameron with two outs and none on in the sixth, and Manager Mike Scioscia pulled him for left-hander Mike Holtz.

Holtz, who has stranded 20 of 25 inherited baserunners this season, struck out Al Martin to end the sixth and retired the side in the seventh. Al Levine ran into trouble in the eighth, walking John Olerud and giving up a two-out single to Cameron.

Scioscia recharged his entire battery, summoning Percival and catcher Jorge Fabregas from the bullpen. Percival then struck out Martin with a 100-mph fastball to end the inning.

David Bell singled off Percival with one out in the ninth, bringing up Ichiro Suzuki, who entered with a league-leading .358 average but was hitless in his four previous at-bats.

With Seattle fans chanting, “Eee-che-ro! Eee-che-ro!” Percival got the speedy leadoff batter to fly to left. McLemore then grounded out to end the game and a strong 3 1/3-inning relief effort that lowered the Angels’ bullpen ERA to a major league-leading 3.01.

“The last time I checked, we have the best bullpen ERA in the league,” Percival said. “That’s due to the middle guys sucking up innings and putting up zeros.”

Percival has a little something to do with that too. The right-hander is 18 for 19 in save opportunities and has a 0.96 ERA.

“I think he’s the best closer in baseball right now,” Rapp said. “The guy’s throwing 100 mph. That’s pretty tough to hit.”

So are balls that barely break the speed limit. Moyer (8-3) baffled the Angels, striking out five and walking none in eight innings, keeping them off balance with his 75-mph changeups and diving sliders.

But Eckstein, leading off the sixth, smoked a full-count pitch over the wall in left for his third home run of the season and a 2-1 Angel lead.

“I just wanted to hit it solid, nothing special,” Eckstein said. “I faced Moyer in spring training and the regular season, and I hadn’t hit one pitch hard.”

Wooten didn’t hit the ball hard in the fifth, but his grounder scored what may have been the Angels’ cheapest runs of the season. Moyer struck out Garret Anderson to open the inning, but his breaking ball bounced past catcher Tom Lampkin, allowing Anderson to reach base.

Salmon tapped a ground-ball out to third, as Anderson took second, and Wooten hit a dribbler through the second-base hole that had so little steam it barely reached Ichiro in right. But that gave Anderson plenty of time to score the tying run.

“It was a changeup that I hit off the end of the bat,” Wooten said. “Sometimes when you get those kinds of hits, you feel bad, but I’m sure pitchers don’t feel bad when a guy lines a ball right at someone. I’ll take a hundred of those.”

The Mariners, who scored in the fourth on Bret Boone’s triple and Lampkin’s sacrifice fly, out-hit the Angels, 6-2. But the Angels still became only the third team to win a series from the Mariners this season.

“It’s not how many hits you get, it’s what you do with them,” Anderson said. “And tonight, those two hits equaled two runs.”