This Angel Leads Hit Parade

The first month of the season is done, and the player with the highest batting average in the major leagues is the one the Angels tossed into -- and retrieved from -- the bargain bin.

He’s Brad Fullmer, who greets May with a .392 average. On the final day of April, he pounded out two more hits, including another home run, but he laughed off a suggestion that he estimate his chances of winning the American League batting title.

“Dude, you know what?” Fullmer said. “I have no idea.”

Fullmer and Bengie Molina each hit a two-run homer, more than enough support for Jarrod Washburn in a 6-2 victory Wednesday night over the Cleveland Indians. In winning consecutive games for the first time in 17 days, the Angels roughed up Cleveland pitchers for 16 runs and 32 hits.

Washburn carried a shutout into the eighth inning, teaming with Brendan Donnelly on a five-hitter. That was impressive on a night Washburn struggled to control his fastball and never did control his slider. He improvised, adding a few more sinkers to the mix, and a guy that thrives on fly-ball outs got 12 ground-ball outs, including nine consecutive outs on ground balls at one point.

The Angels have won four of six games, which in itself does not make for a championship-caliber club, not after losing seven of nine in the preceding stretch. But the starting pitchers, who struggled in the first weeks of the season, have worked into the sixth inning in each of the past six games. John Lackey pitched seven innings Sunday, Ramon Ortiz all nine Tuesday and Washburn eight Wednesday.

“We knew it was just a matter of time before we turned it around,” Washburn said.

“We have too good a pitching staff to pitch the way we were pitching. I don’t think we were panicking, but we wanted to get back into the groove we knew we were capable of.”

Fullmer is in such a groove that he could force the Angels to consider playing him every day. That was the plan last spring, when they happily accepted him and his $3.75-million contract, in a salary dump from the Toronto Blue Jays. But, as he got off to the worst start of his career and the Angels got off to the worst start in franchise history, Manager Mike Scioscia benched Fullmer against left-handers. The Angels started winning, coincidentally or otherwise.

So they regarded him as a platoon player and, rather than risk a salary arbitration hearing in which they might have to pay a platoon player as much as $5 million, they booted him into free agency. When no other team offered him a contract and the Angels told him they were about to sign another designated hitter, he swallowed hard and returned to Anaheim for $1 million.

In April 2002, he hit .219, with no home runs and five runs batted in. In April 2003, he hit .392, with four homers and 18 RBIs.

Fullmer has calmed the frantic motion in his swing, giving him another split-second to see the ball, and he even allows himself to relax every now and then. But he also believes April 2002, the month that made him a platoon player to the Angels, made him stronger mentally.

“I wouldn’t trade that for anything,” he said.

He started against -- and homered off -- left-hander Brian Anderson Wednesday. Scioscia said that he would consider additional playing time for Fullmer against the softer-throwing left-handers, such as Anderson, as opposed to the Randy Johnson-types that make even the best left-handed hitters look foolish.

“You always want to keep the hot bat in there,” Angel hitting coach Mickey Hatcher said. “Right now, I think he can hit from both sides.”

That playing time figures to come at the expense of Scott Spiezio, who did not start Wednesday and who is hitting .182 against left-handers.

Said Fullmer: “I certainly feel I can do a good job on a daily basis. That’s not my call. I just have to show up every day. But I’ll play 162 if they ask.”