Owens Unable to Steal the Spotlight

Eric Owens has been the kind of spark plug the Angels envisioned when they signed him as a free agent in the off-season. The reserve outfielder has already contributed several pivotal hits and was successful on his first four stolen-base attempts.

So it was no surprise Tuesday when Owens took off for second base after entering the game against the Texas Rangers as a pinch-runner. Except for the fact that the Angels were trailing by a run in the ninth inning -- with two out and Garret Anderson at the plate.

Owens thought he could capitalize on Ranger reliever Ugueth Urbina’s high leg kick and put himself in scoring position for Anderson, the Angels’ top hitter who had already driven in a run with a triple. Instead, he took the bat out of Anderson’s hands and left the Angels with a 5-4 defeat before 18,152 at The Ballpark in Arlington.

“You see a high leg kick or something, and it’s a thing that says, ‘Go,’ ” said Owens, who was caught stealing after Urbina’s first pitch on a close play when Ranger second baseman Michael Young applied the tag on his right leg. “I messed up, basically. It was an aggressive instinct that gets me in trouble sometimes.”

Said Angel Manager Mike Scioscia, who had not given Owens the green light: “Eric saw something that wasn’t there. He’s aggressive, and we love him for being aggressive, but in that situation he thought he saw it and it wasn’t there. Eric Owens is beautiful and is the type of player we love to have.

“He just got a little aggressive. That’s baseball. I don’t think we can put a ‘W’ or an ‘L’ on that play.”

Indeed, the Rangers helped their cause with six solid innings from starter Colby Lewis and a five-run fourth inning off Angel starter Jarrod Washburn that erased a 2-0 deficit.

Texas loaded the bases in the inning after Alex Rodriguez and Juan Gonzalez led off with consecutive singles and Washburn plunked Todd Greene with a pitch. Washburn then walked in the Rangers’ first run when he threw a ball to Rafael Palmeiro on a full count.

Washburn appeared on the verge of escaping further damage after striking out Ruben Sierra and Young, but Einar Diaz followed with a two-run single to right and Ryan Christenson hit a two-run double to the wall in left-center. Christenson, who attended Pepperdine and Apple Valley High, had been promoted from triple-A Oklahoma earlier in the day.

Washburn (1-2) surrendered five hits and three walks over six innings while pitching in a stiff wind.

“I had nasty stuff,” he said after his performance, which also included four strikeouts. “I’ve never had stuff as good as I had tonight. My ball was moving more than it ever has. I’m sure a lot of that was the wind. I hope it was, because I really didn’t like it. I like being able to throw balls straight when I want, and I couldn’t.”

Scott Spiezio and Darin Erstad hit solo home runs to right in the sixth and seventh innings, respectively, trimming the Angel deficit to 5-4.

Then the Rangers stepped up defensively in the ninth. Rodriguez raced into shallow center field to make an over-the-shoulder catch of a David Eckstein pop-up. Young dove to his right to snare a line drive from Erstad just a few inches above the infield dirt. And Diaz threw a strike to Young to get Owens, who was running for Tim Salmon after Salmon had hit a two-out single to left.

Owens, who suffered a bloodied right knee on the slide, thought he was safe -- until he saw the replay. “I was probably out by a hand,” he said.

Owens said it was not the first time he had been caught stealing to end a game, but it was the first time it had happened without the manager’s blessing.

“If I’m safe, then everything’s fine,” he said. “But I’m not. I take full responsibility, especially with Garret Anderson up there. I should have waited until deeper in the count to try and go.”