When a Loss Is Much More

All losses are not created equal.

Not when you are the Angels. Not when your sporting resume is filled with too many September collapses.

Not when the season might stop on Friday, maybe for a day, maybe for a week, maybe for a month, maybe for the season but maybe not. Maybe it will really, really matter whether the Angels are in the wild-card playoff spot Friday morning when a strike might begin.

All losses are not created equal, not when you blow a four-run lead in the ninth inning. Not when you are the team that was 129-1 in the last 130 games where you led after eight innings. Not when you lose to a team that committed four errors and a wild pitch. Not when that team is on your back, fighting for a playoff spot too and has a breeze of a September schedule and you have a monster one.

The Angels, with the best bullpen in the American League, with that incredible ability to hold late leads, with a wacky and fun-filled 8 1/2 innings of line-drive hitting and gleeful scoring, with a four-run eighth that broke a 5-5 tie and seemed to break the spirit of the Red Sox, at least in the bottom of the eighth when they swung listlessly and retired themselves lazily, lost this critical game at Fenway Park, 10-9, in 10 innings.

All losses are not created equal. Not the one that is the difference between winning a series, 3-1, against Boston and tying it, 2-2. Not the one that is the difference between a 4-3 trip against two of baseball’s best teams, and a 3-4 trip.

Not the one that is the difference between being a half-game ahead of Seattle for the AL wild-card spot and a half-game behind. Not when you might only have three games left until a work stoppage.

Not when the Red Sox are dancing around their clubhouse, really not sure Johnny Damon did lift that ball over the short fence in right field off shell-shocked Scot Shields in the bottom of the 10th. The Red Sox committed four errors. Throwing errors, dropped ball errors, even a muff by super shortstop Nomar Garciaparra on the night they passed out Garciaparra bobblehead dolls. Damon’s home run was almost merciful. When Troy Percival, your closer, the man who glares, rares back and dares you to hit his 98-mph stuff gives up two hits, a walk, two runs and the game in the bottom of the ninth, you crank up the music and count your blessings.

But on this night, if you’re the Angels, you sit in silence eating lobster from the claws and two pieces of Boston cream pie and say, over and over, “a loss is a loss is a loss. This one is no better or worse than any other.”

So said Manager Mike Scioscia.

And Scioscia has known just how to keep an even tone with this team. He trusts his team to do the right things. That may not always be good enough, but mostly they do the right things.

Not Monday night.

So many of his Angels let Scioscia down.

In big ways, of course, like Percival and Al Levine, who put a big bucket over Angel momentum by giving up leadoff singles to Manny Ramirez and Cliff Floyd to start Boston’s ninth. “It would have been nice if Al could have finished the game,” Scioscia said. Even nicer if Percival had saved it.

And in small ways.

Even after the big collapse, Garret Anderson smashed a one-out double off Boston closer Ugueth Urbina in the top of the 10th. Brad Fullmer was intentionally walked. Troy Glaus just needed to make good contact and score Anderson. He’d had two singles in the game. But Glaus struck out. He wanted to go over the wall and not over the second baseman. That’s not smart. That’s desperate because if the Angels had taken one more lead over the Red Sox, it could have been a heart-stealing lead.

Percival stood and talked and said that, yes, “if you ask me 30 minutes after this, of course this loss seems worse than others. But by tomorrow, it will be forgotten.”

Scott Spieizio, who made the Angels’ final out with Anderson and Fullmer on base, said that “If we go on strike and there’s some crazy thing where we come back and whoever’s in first place and leading the wild card goes to the playoffs, that’s the way it goes.

“If you lose by one game, you can go back through the season and think of many games that can haunt you. But we’re not there yet.”

In the worst kind of tape-delay purgatory, Angel fans who knew the final score but watched the end of this game on television anyway, about an hour after it was over, heard announcer Steve Physioc say to Rex Hudler, “Hud, you can’t beat the Angels with four errors and a wild pitch.”

Whoops. That sound you heard was thousands of Angel fans throwing stuff at the TV.

Maybe Scioscia is right. Maybe this loss is no big deal. Maybe the Angels come back to Edison Field tonight and start a three-game sweep of the bottom-dwelling Devil Rays while Seattle must go to AL Central-leading Minnesota and the Red Sox must play the Yankees.

Or maybe Boston Manager Grady Little is right. “This is probably as high a peak as I’ve seen on this ballclub all season,” he said. And maybe Ramirez is right. “This is the most exciting game I’ve ever played in my life,” he said. That was the sound of the other side. Some wins aren’t created equal either.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com