Glaus Homer Draws Final Conclusion

The Angels and Detroit Tigers played eight innings Wednesday and settled nothing, so the Angels played their Troy cards as trump cards in the ninth.

Game over.

Troy Percival struck out the side in the top of the inning, and Troy Glaus hit the walkoff home run in the bottom of the inning, powering the Angels to a 3-2 victory at Edison Field. As the Angels rushed from their dugout to mob Glaus at home plate, their season took on at least a hint of a championship glow.

The Angels cannot fulfill October dreams without finishing ahead of either the Seattle Mariners or the Oakland Athletics. For all the talk about how far ahead the Mariners are in the American League West, the Angels used their 10th victory in 12 games to climb within a half-game of the A’s for second place in the division.

“When we were sitting at 6-14, we were just trying to scratch out of a hole,” Percival said. “We’ve scratched ourselves out of it, and now it’s time to move on.”

The Tigers will get better, but for now the difference between the teams is this: In the ninth inning of a 2-2 tie, the Angels used Percival, a four-time All-Star who struck out the side on a 96-mph fastball, a 97-mph fastball and an 81-mph curve.

In the bottom of the inning, the Tigers used Fernando Rodney, 21, making his second major league appearance. Glaus, leading off the inning, worked the count full, then fouled off an off-speed pitch and appeared disgusted with himself.

“It was obviously ball four, and I didn’t lay off of it,” Glaus said. “I was trying to get on base and cause some kind of havoc.”

Havoc ensued, on the next pitch. Why settle for a walk when you can hit a game-winning home run? Glaus hit it, circled the bases and returned to a rowdy welcoming committee led by the on-deck hitter, Scott Spiezio.

“I got to the plate and made sure he touched it,” Spiezio said. “Then I mashed him on the helmet.”

Said Glaus: “I was trying to get up so I could take my helmet off. When you take your helmet off, they’re not going to hit you any more.”

Glaus’ home run, his sixth of the season and first at home, capped an Angel evening that included sterling pitching, errorless defense and clutch hitting in the late innings.

“You’re not going to blow everybody out every day,” starter Kevin Appier said. “You have to find ways to win the games that can go either way. That’s what you see with the great teams.”

The Angels got a home run from Garret Anderson and another terrific start from Appier, who limited the Tigers to two runs over seven innings and lowered his earned-run average to 2.83. He extended his streak of consecutive scoreless innings to 172/3--the longest by an Angel starter since Chuck Finley in 1998--before the Tigers nicked him for single runs in the sixth and seventh innings.

The Angels’ sluggish offense prompted discussion of a statistical anomaly. For the most part, the Angels have pitched pretty well home and away this season, with an ERA of 3.91 at Edison Field and 4.19 on the road.

But the disparity on offense is gaping.

In 17 home games, the Angels are batting .230 and scoring 3.6 runs per game. In 15 road games, they’re batting .298 and scoring 6.5 runs per game.

Angel Manager Mike Scioscia regarded the disparity as nothing more than a blip, not only because the season is in its sixth week but because of how unmercifully the Angels pounded pitching in Cleveland and Toronto last week.

“The way we were swinging the bats on the road trip, we could have been playing on the moon and we still would have been scoring runs,” Scioscia said.

“Probably more, because there’s no gravity on the moon.”

Glaus’ home run barely cleared the fence. Detroit’s Bobby Higginson leaped for the ball and insisted it glanced off his glove before landing in the left-field pavilion.

On the moon, of course, the ball would have gone a lot farther.

“Easily into the Mars pavilion,” Scioscia said.