Angels Get the Message

Manager Mike Scioscia has been ambivalent toward the Angels’ double-digit deficit in the American League West, stressing that he’s far more concerned with the improvement of his own team than how many games behind Seattle the Angels are.

But a greater sense of urgency seemed to permeate the Angels before and during Friday night’s 6-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays before 10,946 in Tropicana Field.

Scioscia, perhaps fearing the Angels would slide into an even deeper abyss if they don’t make some kind of move on the Mariners, and pronto, held several lengthy pregame meetings with coaches, pitchers and position players.

Some were the normal meetings that occur before the first game of a series. Some were to address any lingering residue from the friction caused by pitcher Ramon Ortiz’s verbal outburst in the clubhouse after Thursday’s loss in Baltimore. Some were to boost the confidence of struggling players.

“I want to make sure we’re on the same page with a lot of things,” Scioscia said. “You want to make sure everyone keeps the right focus and priorities, and sometimes it takes a special kind of communication. There’s a ton of things we’re trying to keep moving in a positive direction.”

Scioscia denied his patience with the Angels is wearing thin, but he didn’t show much of it with starter Pat Rapp, who was yanked in the fifth inning Friday night, one out before he would have been eligible for a victory.

The Angels, on the strength of Darin Erstad’s two-run homer and Garret Anderson’s sacrifice fly, built a 5-2 lead in the top of the fifth, but Rapp, who somehow managed to give up only two runs despite getting pounded for five hits in the second inning, was on the verge of blowing the lead.

A two-out walk to Jason Tyner, Damian Rolls’ RBI double and Ben Grieve’s RBI single pulled the lowly Devil Rays, who have baseball’s worst record, to within 5-4, and Fred McGriff’s infield single put runners on first and second.

Scioscia summoned side-winding right-hander Ben Weber, who struck out Greg Vaughn to end the inning. Weber added a scoreless sixth, Al Levine threw a scoreless seventh and eighth, and Angel first baseman Scott Spiezio, who singled home a run in the second, hit his first home run of the season in the eighth to pad the Angel lead to 6-4.

With a runner on third and two out in the bottom of the ninth, a full count on Grieve and the dangerous McGriff on deck, Angel closer Troy Percival caught Grieve looking with a slow curve to end the game for his 11th save.

“That’s an indication of how healthy Troy’s arm is and how that translates into command,” Scioscia said. “That was a nasty pitch.”

That’s not a word Scioscia or the Angels, who remained 13 games behind Seattle, would use to describe the tone of Friday’s pregame meetings.

“There’s no sense of urgency other than us having to play good baseball, and we haven’t played good baseball,” Percival said. “All [of the meetings] were geared toward playing hard and playing our game, and sometimes it’s good to hear that we’re good enough to get it done, to move runners over and do the job. There was no anger. Scioscia is very professional.”

Rapp, who gave up four runs on eight hits in 4 2/3 innings and threw only 72 pitches, was not happy about his early departure, but he had to swallow his pride.

“That hasn’t happened to me many times before, and it kind of [stinks],” Rapp said. “But he gave me four or five hitters to get out of [the fifth] and I couldn’t do it.”

Weber, Levine, Percival and catcher Jorge Fabregas wouldn’t let it. Levine hit a snag in the seventh, giving up two-out singles to Grieve and McGriff, but he retired Vaughn on an inning-ending fielder’s choice. Fabregas threw out Gerald Williams on a steal attempt in the eighth.