Sele Can’t Stay Lucky Forever

The tightrope that Aaron Sele tiptoed across during several recent starts finally broke Tuesday night, giving way to the veteran right-hander’s first loss of the season and the Angels’ first loss in almost a week.

The Baltimore Orioles rocked Sele for 13 hits in 4 2/3 innings en route to an 11-3 victory in front of a sellout crowd of 43,068 in Angel Stadium, a large portion of which left after six innings with the Angels down by three, apparently unmoved by the Angels’ recent spate of comeback wins.

The Orioles pounded out a season-high 20 hits, including four by leadoff batter Brian Roberts, to extend their win streak to eight, saddle Sele (7-1) with his first loss of the season and end the Angels’ five-game win streak.

The Angels fell into a virtual second-place tie with Texas in the American League West, 2 1/2 games behind Oakland, and dropped into a virtual three-way tie with Texas and Boston for the AL wild-card lead.

Baltimore broke open a 6-3 game with five runs off reliever Matt Hensley in the eighth, which featured a two-run single by David New- han, who had three hits and three runs batted in, and a three-run homer by Miguel Tejada, who had three hits and drove in a season-high five runs.

“We’ve been playing good baseball for the past week, but we had it handed to us tonight,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “They just flat-out whupped us. Those guys took it to us. They pressured us every inning.”

With a combination of guile and good fortune, Sele managed to avoid the loss column in his first 15 starts, though with a 4.60 earned-run average, he was hardly putting together a Cy Young Award campaign.

In three of his previous five starts, Sele gave up as many earned runs as innings pitched. Each time, the Angels rallied in the middle or late innings to tie the score or take a lead and take Sele off the hook.

Sele had no such luck Tuesday night, not with Baltimore rookie Daniel Cabrera, a 6-7 right-hander with a lively fastball and just enough control problems to prevent the Angels from getting too comfortable in the box, limiting the Angels to three runs and four hits in six innings to improve to 9-5.

Sele was wobbly from the start, giving up four runs and 11 hits in his first four innings, but if not for a rare Angel error -- a dropped relay throw by shortstop David Eckstein -- that opened the door for the Orioles during a two-run fourth, Sele’s final line might have been respectable.

Jerry Hairston led off the fourth with a single, and Roberts followed with a grounder to second baseman Adam Kennedy, whose back-hand flip to second was dropped by Eckstein, ending the Angels’ eight-game errorless streak.

It appeared Sele would escape the jam when he induced Newhan to ground into a 4-6-3 double play, but Melvin Mora walked, and Tejada and Rafael Palmeiro followed with run-scoring singles for a 4-2 Baltimore lead.

The Angels seemed poised to rally in the bottom of the fourth when Darin Erstad drew a leadoff walk and Robb Quinlan lashed a ground-rule double to left to extend his hitting streak to 21 games. Kennedy popped to short, and Josh Paul grounded a run-scoring single toward center to pull the Angels within 4-3.

But Roberts, the Oriole second baseman, made a nice backhand diving stop to keep the ball in the infield and keep Quinlan at third, a play that grew in significance when Quinlan was thrown out at the plate attempting to score on Eckstein’s grounder to short and Chone Figgins flied out to end the inning.

The Orioles knocked out Sele in the fifth, when Roberts doubled to left-center with two out and scored on Newhan’s single to right, giving Baltimore a 5-3 lead.

“I hung a curve to Newhan and that put them up by [two],” Sele said. “We hung close, but unfortunately, their hits started catching up to us. They’re hot now, and they have a talented lineup. You have to make good pitches.”