Angels Follow a Pecking Order to Comeback Win

One-dimensional, these Angels are not. After mashing their way to their first two wins, rapping out 28 hits, including six home runs, they veered down a more traditional path Thursday, stressing superb pitching, defense and situational hitting over the long ball.

The result was a 5-1 victory over the Seattle Mariners before 34,376 at Safeco Field, the Angels’ three-game sweep forged with a five-run, ninth-inning outburst that featured four singles and an opposite-field double.

“Our offense is not built on the home run,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “It’s great when they come, but we know we’re going to have to scrap against the tough pitchers. This easily could have been a 1-1 or a 2-1 game in the ninth. They got the best of us for eight innings, but we battled in the ninth.”

Adam Kennedy provided the decisive blow, turning a 1-0 Angel deficit into a 2-1 lead with a bases-loaded single just over the glove of leaping second baseman Bret Boone.

But Kennedy’s game-winner was preceded by three table-setting singles by Garret Anderson, Troy Glaus and Jose Guillen, the big boppers who showed they are not averse to playing some little ball.

After the Angels were blanked by Seattle starter Freddy Garcia for seven innings and reliever Julio Mateo in the eighth, Anderson, who hit two home runs Wednesday, set the tone for the ninth by flaring a single to left off left-hander Mike Myers.

“I was just trying to keep it simple, hit the ball on a line, be a tough out,” said Anderson, a career .294 hitter against left-handers. “I wasn’t trying to go deep and be a hero. I’m a leadoff hitter. I need to get on base.”

Seattle Manager Bob Melvin pulled Myers for right-hander Shigetoshi Hasegawa, whose first pitch was lined to left-center for a single by Glaus, who hit two home runs in Tuesday’s win.

Guillen came up thinking bunt, but with the Mariners pinching on the corners, he shifted gears. Hoping to push the ball to the right side and advance the runners, Guillen, who struck out with runners on second and third and no outs in the second, wound up chopping a single to right to load the bases.

Hasegawa struck out Tim Salmon on a full-count slider, but Kennedy came through with his hit, Hasegawa balked in a third run, pinch-hitter Jeff DaVanon walked, and Darin Erstad slapped a two-out, two-run double over third base for a 5-1 lead.

“That makes the game fun,” Kennedy said of the Angels’ chip-away tactics. “You know if the big boys aren’t hitting home runs, you have a chance.”

Kennedy also made two nice defensive plays in the bottom of the ninth, charging Raul Ibanez’s leadoff chopper and making an off-balance throw to first and diving toward the middle to stop Edgar Martinez’s grounder and throw Martinez out.

But the defensive gem of the day belonged to Guillen, who threw out the speedy Randy Winn at the plate in the first inning when Winn tried to score from second on Boone’s single.

“I had no doubt in my mind Winn was going to score on that hit,” Boone said. “It was just a flat-out awesome throw.”

Some managers might have quibbled with the fact that Guillen air-mailed his throw to catcher Josh Paul, missing the cut-off man by several feet. Not Scioscia.

“That was a rocket,” Scioscia said. “I told him when he came in, ‘That’s your RBI right there.’ To get Winn ... that’s a special throw. In a perfect world, you’d like him to hit the cut-off man, but I’m not going to complain.”

Neither was Angel starter Kelvim Escobar, who gave up two doubles and a single in the first inning -- and didn’t give up a run. Escobar, who signed a three-year, $18.75-million contract this winter, allowed one run and seven hits in six innings of his Angel debut, striking out four and walking two.

Reliever Scot Shields retired the side in order in the seventh and eighth to gain the victory, Kevin Gregg added a scoreless ninth, and the Angels completed a road sweep of a team that is expected to contend in the American League West.

“They have some good pitchers over there,” Guillen said of the Mariners. “But we have some great hitters over here.”