A’s, Angels Are Streaking, Standing Toe to Toe in West

So, the Oakland A’s win when they trail by five runs, as they did in their 19th consecutive victory, and they win even when they blow an 11-run lead, as they did in their 20th, and center fielder Terrence Long wonders how long it will be before the pursuing Angels lose heart.

“We went through it last year,” Long was saying after the A’s set an American League record for consecutive wins with their bizarre, 12-11 victory over Kansas City on Wednesday night.

“We had a great second half [the second best ever], won 102 games and still finished 14 games behind Seattle. It was deflating. The Angels are playing great ball now, but we’re playing great ball as well. I’m sure they have to be feeling like we did last year.”

If the Angels are frustrated or deflated by their inability to catch the A’s in the American League West, it hasn’t shown.

In fact, the A’s seem to talk so much about the Angels, could it be that they’re the ones a little frustrated or deflated by their inability to put Anaheim away?

Nonsense, insisted Manager Art Howe, who says he has a professional team that “isn’t looking at any other team and isn’t worried about any other team.”

At this point, in fact, it appears that both teams are headed for the playoffs and the only real debate is which team wins the division and which becomes the wild card, qualifying for the dubious privilege of playing the New York Yankees in the first round.

The Angels have bought into Manager Mike Scioscia’s mantra of playing one game at a time so thoroughly that they might not even know the A’s have won 20 in a row or that they have eight games left against the A’s, starting with a four-game series in Anaheim that begins Monday.

That’s undoubtedly a stretch, but the point is that it has been difficult to get the Angels, who have won seven in a row, to look at the big picture when their focus is restricted, as it will be tonight, to a series opener in Baltimore.

Tony Gwynn, in Oakland Wednesday as an analyst on the ESPN telecast, said he admires the way the Angels have gone about it and would give Scioscia the edge over Howe as the AL’s manager of the year.

“That’s not to take anything away from Art Howe,” Gwynn said. “He lost Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon and he has one of the smallest payrolls in baseball, but he also has a playoff-tested nucleus and a team that won more than 100 games last year.

“No one could have predicted the Angels would play as well as they have when they signed Aaron Sele and Kevin Appier, including me, but they bring a lot of focus, intensity and enthusiasm, and that’s a tribute to the manager.”

While the A’s were flying to Minnesota on Thursday, the Angels entered the finale of the Tampa Bay series having gone 14-6 during the Oakland streak.

They have remained in the race, three games behind the A’s, while the Mariners have shown signs of defaulting.

In the aftermath of 116 wins and their historic season, the Mariners have fallen seven games behind the A’s and four behind the Angels while going 8-12 and never winning more than two in a row during the Oakland streak.

Manager Lou Piniella has kept his cool, but at some point he may reveal his true feelings to an ownership that, despite reaping vast revenue in sold-out Safeco Field, tightened purse strings and failed to address Piniella’s second-half needs, unless you consider Jose Offerman and Ismael Valdes significant additions.

Now, Piniella probably will play the rest of the season without Mark McLemore’s versatility and clutch hitting. McLemore had elbow surgery Thursday, and Piniella was asked if he will miss his clubhouse leadership.

“We need his bat for the next 10 or 12 days,” Piniella said. “We can get General Patton for the clubhouse.”

There is some doubt as to Patton’s availability, but it may be too late to rein in the A’s anyway.

These guys are the best stretch runners since Silky Sullivan.

As Jayson Stark pointed out on ESPN.com, over the last two years they are 73-15 after Aug. 1--which is an .830 percentage that translates to an improbable record of 135-27 for a 162-game season.

Their 20 consecutive victories are more wins than the New York Mets, with a payroll 2 1/2 times that of the A’s $40 million, have totaled in the seven weeks of the second half and a longer streak than the longest win streaks of the Yankees (seven games), Twins (six) and Dodgers (five) combined this year.

Why did it take so long for the A’s to get on track?

Well, put simplistically ...

* Their young starting pitchers struggled during the first half;

* Their Animal House antics may have contributed to a lack of early focus, prompting Howe to turn down the clubhouse stereo and management to make several roster changes;

* And, there was an inevitable period of adjustment with Giambi, Damon and closer Jason Isringhausen gone.

“We had to feel our way for a while,” said Howe, “but once they figured they could do it without certain people, it all really came together. The atmosphere during the streak has been like a playoff. The energy and focus has been outstanding.”

And, of course, don’t tell General Manager Billy Beane about competitive and revenue disparities. He has again filled gaps with David Justice, Billy Koch, Scott Hatteberg, John Mabry, Ray Durham and Ricardo Rincon, among others. The volume may be lower in the clubhouse, but the A’s are still pretty loud and loose.

“I don’t know what’s going on in the clubhouse, but when I turn on the TV I see a lot of weapons,” Gwynn said.

For Beane, the best thing about the streak is the fading calendar accompanying it.

Every game the A’s win, he said, diminishes the importance of an ensuing game, including those eight with the Angels.

Of course, the A’s can’t keep giving up 22 runs, as they have in the last three wins, and expect to sustain the streak. Nor can they keep calling on closer Koch with daily regularity, especially when they have an 11-0 lead.

Still, Beane said, the streaking A’s are clearly something special and personify a 25-man unit.

“We had a championship-caliber team last year,” he said, “but the media tended to focus on the one guy [Giambi], as if everybody else was along for the ride.

“This team is proving that wasn’t the case. I mean, I saw a team play as well as it could in the second half last year and thought I’d seen it all.

“Obviously, I was mistaken.”