Angels Hit Back, Beat Blue Jays

What slump? Did somebody say something about a slump?

You wouldn’t have suspected the Angels were in a slump from walking through their clubhouse before Saturday’s game, with some players gathered around a computer, others talking college football and MC Benji Gil blasting rap music on the sound system.

And you certainly wouldn’t have suspected the Angels were in a slump from watching them play. The Angels responded to one of their ugliest games of the season with one of their best, blitzing the Toronto Blue Jays with seven runs in the third inning of an 11-4 victory.

“If we have a game that’s a mulligan, we have to be able to turn the page,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “These guys do a good job of that.”

The Angels had lost three consecutive games, and another loss Saturday would have dropped them into third place in the American League West and the AL wild-card standings. The Angels got a few hours sleep Friday night, awoke, shrugged and pounded out 18 hits, including three apiece from Garret Anderson, Darin Erstad and Jose Molina, and home runs from Erstad, Anderson and Brad Fullmer.

Rookie John Lackey won again, pitching six solid innings, still oblivious to pennant pressure. Each starter had at least one hit, as the Angels maintained their half-game lead over the Boston Red Sox and Oakland Athletics in the wild-card race. In the AL West, the Angels trail the Seattle Mariners by 3 1/2 games.

This is not the first time the Angels have shrugged off a defeat that appeared devastating to those watching from outside the clubhouse.

In April, with the Angels off to the worst start in franchise history, they lost to Seattle in a game in which the only run scored when a ball rolled between the legs of pitcher Ramon Ortiz, then scored 10 runs the next day to beat the first-place Mariners.

Last month, they blew a 7-1 lead at Minnesota, then beat the first-place Twins the next day.

That resiliency, essential for any contender, is born in the manager’s office, according to Erstad. Scioscia might pull a player or two aside to discuss a mental error, but in front of the whole team he seldom displays anything but a confident, upbeat attitude, even after the roughest of losses.

“He’s the same every day, regardless of whether we’re playing good or we’re playing bad,” Erstad said. “There’s no carryover. You can’t let what happened the day before affect how you play.”

This is easier said than done, to be sure.

And, of course, the mental approach to winning is irrelevant if the team isn’t good enough to win.

But the Angels are, and the core group of players learned its lessons from faltering in the pennant races of 1999 and 2000, and from losing 19 of its final 21 games last season. This season’s Angels lost 14 of their first 20 games and not only survived but flourished.

“We’ve been through the fire,” Erstad said. “When things snowballed, we let them get to us. We’ve had situations where we haven’t done well and we let it get to us. We know how to handle it now.”

Scioscia deflected Erstad’s credit back onto the players, saying, “As hard as these guys play, and with the passion they have for the game, a lot of this stuff is self-healing.”

Anderson seconded that point, suggesting there is nothing a manager can say that substitutes for the experience of learning how to shake off the last bad at-bat, that last crummy pitch, that last awful game.

“That’s definitely a player thing,” Anderson said. “His influence can’t make us that way. That has to come from within. Mike can definitely set a tone for how the team is going to be run, but that’s a little different.”

Don’t worry, be happy? Works for these guys.

“You have to be able to turn the page and leave your worries behind from the day before,” Scioscia said.

“That’s a good lyric for a song, isn’t it?”