Angel Can Relish Catch-Up Effort

The Angels could have spent Thursday evening kicking themselves after making enough mistakes to lose to the Oakland Athletics at Edison Field. The Angels instead celebrated a 7-6 victory by pounding on Scott Spiezio’s helmet as a raucous crowd of 31,304 chanted the infielder’s name.

In the final analysis, it didn’t particularly matter how the Angels defeated the A’s, merely that they did. The victory was the Angels’ 91st and moved them into a first-place tie with Oakland in the American League West standings.

The end of the regular season is more than two weeks away, but the Angels seem to sense greater things are ahead for them. They haven’t been to the playoffs since 1986, faltering in a string of forgettable Septembers since then.

These Angels, two victories away from duplicating the franchise record set during 1982’s run to the West championship, appear capable of doing all that’s necessary to ensure that there will be baseball in Anaheim in October.

Thursday that meant rallying from deficits of 1-0 and 5-3 before pulling out a victory on Spiezio’s line drive off the right-field fence off Oakland closer Billy Koch that scored Darin Erstad from third base with two out in the ninth.

“I was looking for anything over the plate,” Spiezio said of facing Koch. “He supplied most of the power.”

Indeed, Koch entered the tie game to start the ninth and promptly struck out Benji Gill, then blew two fastballs past Erstad, pinch-hitting for Alex Ochoa. Manager Mike Scioscia decided to give Erstad a rest Thursday, offering him a chance to regroup after falling into an eight-for-41 skid to start September.

Erstad stepped out of the batter’s box to better prepare for Koch’s next pitch. He then lined Koch’s next offering into the right-field corner for a double. Erstad then stole third easily, taking off without prompting from Scioscia.

“Erstad thought the game was going to end pretty soon and he didn’t want to come in with a clean uniform,” Scioscia joked. Of resting Erstad, Scioscia said, “We wanted to clear his head a little bit and he ended up scoring the winning run.”

Scioscia also gave closer Troy Percival the night off after using him in four of the last six games and six of the last eight. It almost cost the Angels.

Holding a 6-5 lead after pinch-hitter Orlando Palmeiro’s run-scoring single in the eighth, Scoscia turned to Brendan Donnelly to start the ninth.

Donnelly got the first two A’s he faced, but Eric Chavez sent a laser over the right-field fence for the tying run. Donnelly walked Jermaine Dye, but catcher Bengie Molina picked off pinch-runner Eric Byrnes to end the inning.

“I threw [Chavez] a splitter and he fouled it off,” Donnelly would later explain after his first victory. “So I threw him another one.... Bad location.”

The first run given up by their bullpen in 15 innings merely set the stage for a dramatic, remarkable finish that enabled the Angels to take three of four games from the A’s. The teams play four times in Oakland beginning Monday.

“We’re sitting in a good spot right now with a tie,” Spiezio said. “But we’ve got a lot of baseball left. Texas is hot. We’ve got to focus on them.”

The Rangers completed a four-game sweep of the Seattle Mariners, who failed to gain ground on the Angels for the 17th consecutive day, dating to Aug. 26. The Mariners trail the Angels and A’s by seven games.

The Angels play host to the Rangers in a three-game series, starting today, while the A’s and Mariners play three at Oakland.

Working with a 3-1 lead seemed to put Angel starter Mickey Callaway at ease until David Justice beat out a slow roller to short with one out in the fourth.

Terrence Long then hit the ball back to Callaway, who wheeled to begin an inning-ending double play. But his throw sailed away from shortstop David Eckstein and Justice was safe at second.

Eckstein’s throw to first almost missed the mark, putting runners on first and third with one out.

The jam would only get worse for Callaway, making his fourth start since his recall from the minors Aug. 25. Mark Ellis, Greg Myers, Ray Durham and Scott Hatteberg delivered hard-hit singles before Callaway could get the second out of the inning.

By then the Angels trailed, 5-3.