Angels Hope to Finish What They Started

It would be nice to say that the only thing the Angels have to fear in their ongoing attempt to reach the postseason is Don Fehr himself, but it’s not that simple.

They are still three games behind Seattle in the American League West, still in a wild-card dogfight with Boston and Oakland, still have 52 games left and, yes, still face the specter of their union leader, whom they are under peer pressure to support, soon setting a strike date that could interrupt--or even end--their special season before they have exorcised the ghosts of so many previous seasons.

Negotiations resume in New York today, and Fehr could ask his executive board to set a strike date by midweek--or by next week at the latest, depending on developments.

If a date is not set until next week, it is likely to be Sept. 1 or Sept. 16. If it is set Tuesday or Wednesday, it could be as soon as Aug. 16.

Any interruption, Angel right fielder Tim Salmon said Sunday, “would be a disappointment, of course, but I’ve honestly been focused on the game. In my heart of hearts, I just can’t believe they won’t get together and get something done. I’m cautiously optimistic.”

It has reached the point where it is impossible to escape the labor shadow, just as it was impossible again Sunday to escape the October overtones as the New York Yankees beat the Angels, 7-5, in 12 tense innings.

The Angels rued the loss, their ultimate inability to overcome another struggling start by the enigmatic Ramon Ortiz, to produce a run over the final 10 innings and to do more than split a four-game series that was sold out from start to finish.

But in the big picture, they completed a 20-game crucible against the American League’s best teams with a 12-8 record and sent the Yankees back to the Bronx with a calling card similar to the one they laid on Seattle in winning five of six earlier in the 20-game span.

The Angels continue to prove they can compete.

“We’re good enough to beat any team anywhere,” Salmon said. “We’re good enough to be a postseason team.”

The Yankees know the postseason. Manager Joe Torre wasn’t making any predictions about encountering the Angels in October, but he said they are as competitive as any his team has faced.

“They’re energetic, managed very well, know what’s expected of them, don’t back off from a challenge and play unselfishly,” Torre said. “I give a lot of credit to [Angel Manager] Mike Scioscia because that’s the way he played. I mean, we haven’t ever played particularly well here, but that’s not to take anything away from the Angels. They certainly make you work hard to beat them.”

It took 4 hours 47 minutes Sunday, and if it could have ended better for the Angels, it didn’t shake Scioscia’s belief in his team or prompt him to disavow his one-at-a-time mantra.

Across the clubhouse Sunday, as Salmon was calling the 20-game stretch the Angels had just finished “probably our biggest challenge to this point” and a “make-or-break span I certainly don’t think broke us,” Scioscia sat in his office and insisted he “didn’t need to see us play these teams to know how we’d do. I mean, no matter how we did it wasn’t going to change my opinion that we have a championship-caliber team. We just need to keep our vision on the game coming up.”

The Angels left Sunday night for Detroit, Chicago and Toronto, and the letdown risk has strangled the Angels in the past.

“We’re within striking distance, but the next test is to beat the teams we should beat,” Salmon said. “People are excited, talking about us, coming to the games. That’s a pretty good indication of how well we’re playing, but we’ve got to keep playing well. That’s what Seattle does, what the Yankees do. They come to play every day.”

There are scouts and others who have questioned whether the talented Ortiz brings his intensity and focus to every start. It is difficult to believe he wouldn’t have had both with a full house at Edison Field and the Yankees in the batter’s box, but he perpetuated his second half struggle by giving up nine hits, five runs and his major league-high 31st homer in 4 1/3 innings and 96 pitches.

In his last five starts, as Jarrod Washburn continues to soar past him on the developmental ladder, Ortiz has given up 37 hits, 22 earned runs and five homers in 24 2/3 innings.

Pitching coach Bud Black made two trips to the mound during the right-hander’s brief stint against the Yankees, delivering long lectures each time.

Scioscia would later acknowledge that Ortiz lacked presence, but said his recent struggle is strictly a matter of mechanics, flying open with his front shoulder.

“He’s a click off,” the manager said, “but when he’s on, he’s shown us that he can run the table, put seven or eight good starts together. His last four or five haven’t been great, but you have to look at the [final package of] 32 or 33 and where he’s going to end up.”

Perhaps, but it’s going to be difficult looking if the rest are like the last five.

On Sunday, in a game tied, 5-5, after two innings, Ortiz forced Scioscia to go to the largely anonymous relievers in his bullpen earlier than he would have liked, but Brendan Donnelly and Ben Weber came up big again, working 3 2/3 scoreless innings before Troy Percival and Al Levine each pitched a scoreless inning and Scott Shields pitched another only to walk three batters in the 12th, leading to the decisive runs.

Aside from Percival, the Angels head into the stretch with a basically untested relief corps, and they have been somewhat sensitive about media comments on that and the failure to add a seasoned reliever before the non-waiver deadline.

Was it a mistake? Time will tell, providing Fehr doesn’t decide time is up.