Angels Prove to Opponents That They Are Playoff Ready

The Angels have already demonstrated that they’re good enough to make the playoffs. If the season ended today, they’d be in as the American League wild-card winner.

Now they’re starting to show signs that they could actually do something if they get there-- assuming the players don’t strike and there is a there there.

Their 5-1 victory over the Oakland A’s on Wednesday night puts them in position to win back-to-back series against Oakland and Seattle if they can beat the A’s today. Beyond that, it showed they can get the type of pitching it would take to beat, say, Oakland in a playoff series.

Isn’t this too much for Angel fans to comprehend? Don’t those 1982 uniforms they’re wearing this week serve as a painful reminder that even the best Angel team ever choked on a two-games-to-none lead against the Milwaukee Brewers in the ALCS that year?

With the Angels, a franchise that has never won a playoff series and has suffered its share of regular-season collapses, it has always been a question of whether you want your disappointment now or later.

Will they extend their season just so they can make an early exit?

Not if the pitching comes through the way it has this week.

Aaron Sele got the victory by going seven innings, giving up six hits (including a solo home run by Miguel Tejada) and no walks.

That’s pretty much the type of effort it takes when matched up against Oakland’s Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder or Barry Zito. And sometimes even that isn’t enough. Just ask Kevin Appier, who gave up only a two-run homer to Tejada on Tuesday night and lost to Zito.

That’s how it goes during the playoffs. Ask Zito, who pitched an outstanding game against the Yankees last fall, only to lose to a solo homer by Jorge Posada and that play-for-the-ages by Derek Jeter.

And yes, these are the playoffs. Or at least playoff simulations.

“It didn’t use to seem like it with the Angels,” Zito said.

“Last year, they weren’t as close, but this year, [when] we play everyone in our division it’s like a playoff game.”

The Angels are in the midst of a stretch of 20 consecutive games against opponents that could make the playoffs.

“As you get into a pennant race, there’s going to be games that are going to have a lot of focus,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said.

“You’re going to have series that everything from the atmosphere to the importance you put on every game, it will give you that playoff environment that hopefully will prepare you for the postseason.”

That said, however, “There’s nothing that prepares you for the postseason like the postseason.”

And that’s where the Angels are most deficient. Oakland, Seattle and New York all went to the playoffs last year (Well, the Yankees go every year).

Sele was with the Mariners last year, so at least he has been through it.

“You’ve got to pitch well to keep your team in the game,” Sele said. “The starting pitcher can’t win the game all by himself, but he can lose it. I think the West is full of pitching.”

Come playoff time, especially in the short first round, you need two or three guys who can just shut the opponent down and win a game by themselves.

That’s the key ingredient that won the World Series for the Arizona Diamondbacks last year, and it remains the biggest question mark for the Seattle Mariners.

Oakland’s staff is the most coveted. A’s starters didn’t allow a run in six of their 12 previous games before Wednesday.

“We like holding down the opposition, obviously,” Zito said. “When you’re a starter, you give up zero, one or two runs it’s great. The fact that we might have to do that to win the ballgame, that’s not something we try to go for every time.”

Scioscia says: What about us? His team’s earned-run average was 4.03 before Wednesday, fourth in the league (behind Oakland’s 3.87).

“Our staff stacks up, and I think we match up on the mound with the teams in our division,” Scioscia said. “And I hope what they’re looking at is the same thing when they’re looking at [Jarrod] Washburn or they’re facing [Ramon] Ortiz and [Kevin] Appier, that they’re going to have to bring their ‘A’ game and they’re going to have to pitch well on the mound to beat us.”

Besides raising esoteric questions (don’t the A’s, by definition, always bring their ‘A’ game?), Scioscia’s statement is another phase in his attempt to raise the bar for the Angels. He uses the phrase “championship-caliber” quite often when he discusses what he wants and what he has seen from his club.

“We have those traits,” he said.

You can count on the Angels crossing the plate one way or the other. After all, they’re fourth in the majors in scoring. On Wednesday it was David Eckstein driving in a run with a triple and scoring on a wild pitch in the third, then Orlando Palmeiro driving in three runs with a double in the sixth.

That’s four RBIs from the leadoff and seventh spots in the lineup.

They’ll need the same amount of resourcefulness from the staff. Perhaps their guys can’t be counted on the way Johnson and Schilling can, but someone could step up the way Appier and Sele have.

“Our focus isn’t to start talking about the playoffs,” Scioscia said. “Our focus is to make sure we work all those steps that will lead to that.”

It starts with pitching. And if they’re going to continue, that means even more pitching.

*

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com