Angels’ Palmeiro Doesn’t Take This Defeat Lightly

Orlando Palmeiro might as well have been playing right field with a blindfold Sunday, because that’s how the Angel reserve felt when Gerald Williams’ two-out flare came toward him in the 10th inning.

Palmeiro, whose pinch-hit RBI single in the ninth sent the game into extra innings, got a good jump on Williams’ ball but lost it in the lights, allowing Felix Martinez to score from second and give the Tampa Bay Devil Rays a 4-3 victory over the Angels before 11,808 at Tropicana Field.

That put an ugly ending to a frustrating afternoon in which the Angels went one for 13 with runners in scoring position, watched their three-four-five batters go 0 for 15 and wasted a strong start by right-hander Ismael Valdes to fall a season-high 14 games behind Seattle in the American League West.

“I jabbed at the last place I saw it, and that was that,” Palmeiro said. “I wish I could have it back. It just so happens the route I took [to the ball] took it right into the lights.”

Palmeiro wouldn’t have been in the game defensively had starting right fielder Tim Salmon not taken a 93-mph fastball from closer Esteban Yan in the ribs in the top of the ninth.

Salmon, who had his first multiple-hit game since May 6 with two singles, stiffened up on the bases, and Manager Mike Scioscia pulled him before the bottom of the ninth.

Palmeiro was put to the test almost immediately when Martinez opened the 10th with a soft liner to right. Palmeiro raced in and attempted a sliding catch, but the ball squirted out of his glove when his glove hit the turf.

Jason Tyner’s sacrifice bunt moved Martinez to second, and Angel reliever Al Levine retired Damian Rolls on a popup to first. Up stepped Williams, who entered the game for defensive purposes in the top of the ninth.

Williams lunged at an outside pitch and sent it to shallow right, where Palmeiro, determined not to let this one fall the way Martinez’s hit did, sprinted in, almost overrunning it. The ball sailed right past Palmeiro’s glove, and the Angels’ modest two-game winning streak was history.

“No one feels worse than O.P.,” Scioscia said. “To all of us it looks like a routine out to right field, but he’s the only guy who can’t see it. It’s a lonely position to be in, but that’s part of baseball.”

Palmeiro said the play “cost us the game,” but it might not have if the Angels had cashed in on an excellent chance to break a 3-3 tie in the 10th. Darin Erstad opened with a single, Troy Glaus flied to right, Erstad stole second and took third on Yan’s wild pitch.

Cleanup batter Wally Joyner, who was hitless in his first four at-bats and hadn’t knocked a ball out of the infield, hit a chopper to first. Erstad, running on contact, broke for home, but first baseman Steve Cox’s throw reached catcher John Flaherty well ahead of the runner.

Erstad, the former Nebraska football player, tried to plow through Flaherty as if he was going for a first down, but Flaherty held onto the ball despite a violent collision, and Erstad was out.

“I don’t expect anything else from Ersty,” Scioscia said. “That shows you the way he plays the game.”

If the Angels’ offense Sunday shows how they can hit, they won’t have any chance of making a run at the Mariners. They scored in the first inning on Joyner’s RBI groundout and in the second on Jorge Fabregas’ double-play grounder. They failed to produce a clutch hit off Tampa Bay pitcher Bryan Rekar, who is 0-6. Twice, the Angels failed to advance a runner from second with no outs.

“That’s due to the fact that [Rekar] made some terrific pitches in key situations,” Scioscia said. “Sometimes you have to tip your cap to the pitcher. We didn’t execute a couple times with guys on second and no outs, but a lot of that was due to the pitching.”

Randy Winn’s two-out, two-run single off Valdes in the sixth gave Tampa Bay a 3-2 lead, but the Angels tied it in the ninth when Scott Spiezio tripled, Salmon was hit by a pitch and Palmeiro singled to left. One inning later, the worst team in baseball found itself with a gift victory.

“Someone finally gave one to us,” Devil Ray Manager Hal McRae said. “God knows we’ve given our share away.”