May’s Day Distresses the Angels

The Angels traded in John Lackey’s scoreless streak for one of their own Tuesday night during a listless offensive performance against the Kansas City Royals.

It was an exchange the Angels would rather take back after a deflating 4-0 loss before 34,283 who were reduced to cheering line-drive outs at Edison Field.

The Royals ended Lackey’s consecutive scoreless streak at 22 innings when Michael Tucker hit a two-run bloop single in the fourth. Meanwhile, unheralded Kansas City starter Darrell May and two relievers combined on a four-hitter as the Angels suffered their first shutout since June 18.

Lackey pitched almost as well as he did during his last two starts, shutout performances against the Dodgers and Texas Rangers, with the notable exception of a fifth-inning fastball he left over the plate. Aaron Guiel crushed the pitch for a two-run homer.

“I was one pitch away from pretty much throwing up zeros,” said Lackey, who has compiled a 1.45 earned-run average over his last three starts. “The ball Tucker hit was blooped in, and the homer was the only bad pitch that I paid for.

“I pitched well enough to win, I just pitched on the wrong night.”

The punchless Angels advanced only two runners as far as second base against May (3-4), who has won three consecutive starts for the first time in his career.

The Angels (44-43) lost their first game against an American League Central opponent in six contests this season, though their five victories had come against hapless Cleveland.

The team is on the brink of .500 again, and it is becoming apparent that if its current pace keeps up much longer that this will go down as just another lost summer in Orange County after winning a World Series title last year. The Angels fell 11 1/2 games behind Seattle in the AL West and 6 1/2 games behind Boston in the wild-card standings after both the Mariners and Red Sox won.

“It’s not exactly where we want to be,” left fielder Garret Anderson said. “[But] you can’t write the season off. We have a lot of games left to play. The thing we took from last year is, now we know what it takes to do it.”

Said third baseman Troy Glaus: “There’s 75 games left. That’s a lot of room to make up ground.”

Lackey pitched three no-hit innings before Desi Relaford opened the fourth with a single through the hole between third base and shortstop. Relaford would have scored on Ken Harvey’s two-out double to right-center except for an excellent relay throw by second baseman Chone Figgins, which forced Relaford to retreat to third after racing halfway toward home plate.

But Lackey (6-8) couldn’t escape the inning unscathed as Tucker followed with a two-run single just over the reach of shortstop Benji Gil in shallow left-center to give Kansas City a 2-0 lead.

Guiel made it 4-0 an inning later with his homer just over the 400-foot sign in straightaway center.

Lackey’s pitching line: six hits and two walks over seven innings.

“This had the making of a terrific start for John,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “There was one ball down the middle of the plate, but other than that he pitched a great ballgame.”

The Angels put together their best offensive threat with two out in the first when Tim Salmon walked and moved to second on Anderson’s single before being stranded. In the second, Gil hit a two-out double but was left there after Eric Owens struck out to end the inning.

Glaus singled to lead off the seventh but would have been picked off had first baseman Harvey been able to hold on to a throw from shortstop Angel Berroa. The mistake didn’t matter as the Angels went down in order the rest of the inning.

Relievers Jason Grimsley and D.J. Carrasco shut out the Angels over the final two innings.

“We hit the ball better tonight than it’s going to show,” Scioscia said, “but four hits and no runs is not going to get it done.”