Time Not on Angels’ Side After Defeat

Tread water today? Or sink deeper? That’s no way to pursue a pennant, but the Angels have done one or the other nearly every day, for a month now.

At what point, just to keep the faith, do the Angels have to gain a game on the Seattle Mariners?

“For me, that point has pretty much come,” second baseman Adam Kennedy said.

“You don’t want to panic. At the same time, you haven’t gained any ground. We have to start doing that. The longer it goes on like this, the more out of reach it becomes.”

With Saturday’s 4-3 loss to the Cleveland Indians, the Angels extended to 13 the number of consecutive days they have failed to gain ground on Seattle. The Angels previously endured 12 days without gaining on Seattle from April 19-30.

And no longer will Troy Percival carry a 0.00 earned-run average by his name. The Indians won the game in the 10th inning, when Jolbert Cabrera singled and Roberto Alomar doubled him home, perking up the sizable Cleveland contingent among an Edison Field crowd of 40,019.

After giving up three hits in 14 1/3 innings all season, Percival gave up two in one inning Saturday. That the Indians pierced his shield of zeros was no surprise; Percival is 0-8 with an 8.76 ERA lifetime against Cleveland.

And so, one week before Memorial Day, the Angels tread 12 games behind the Mariners in the American League West.

“We need to start playing good baseball first,” Kennedy said. “We haven’t deserved to be gaining ground in the standings, not the way we’ve been playing.”

They certainly did not deserve to gain--or win--Saturday, not with a miserable display of clutch hitting.

The Angels were one for 18 with runners in scoring position and left 17 runners on base.

Kennedy--the No. 9 batter--tied a career high with four hits. But the heart of the Angel lineup--Darin Erstad, Tim Salmon, Garret Anderson and Troy Glaus--combined for two hits in 18 at-bats.

“Those guys are proven hitters,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “When you have four guys struggling as much as they are, especially with men in scoring position. . . . It’s costing us ballgames right now. That production has to come around for us to put wins up.”

Cleveland starter Jaret Wright did not get a decision in his homecoming game, although he afforded the Angels plenty of chances to hang a loss on him.

Wright grew up in Anaheim, and his father Clyde once pitched a no-hitter for the Angels at Edison Field--er, Anaheim Stadium. Dad was on hand Saturday, part of a large and rowdy cheering section supporting Wright in his first start of the season, nine months after surgery to repair the rotator cuff and labrum in his pitching shoulder.

The first batter he faced, David Eckstein, singled. The next batter, Erstad, walked. The Angels failed to score.

In the third inning, the Angels should have dispatched Wright to the showers, or into the arms of his parents. He walked four batters, yet the Angels scored but once, and only then because Anderson walked with the bases loaded. Three batters failed with runners in scoring position; none got the ball out of the infield.

In all, Wright survived five innings, requiring an astoundingly high 98 pitches. He walked six and gave up four hits and two runs, but the Angels stranded eight over those five innings.

Angel starter Jarrod Washburn lasted seven innings, on 101 pitches. He also received no decision, although a clutch hit or two from his teammates would have provided him with victories in consecutive starts for the first time this season.

While the standings are of concern within the Angel clubhouse, they are not necessarily the primary concern.

“If we don’t play well, it doesn’t matter,” Erstad said. “It’s obviously a situation you don’t want to be in.”

The Mariners have won three of every four games this season.

“If they keep playing .700 baseball, no one will catch them. That’s a fact,” Anderson said.

“But, if we’re not winning, it doesn’t matter what they do. I never look for help. I just wish we would win games and put a good run together.”