It’s Worth the Wait for the Angels

Not even a 3-hour, 42-minute rain delay, believed to be one of the longest delays in baseball history, could put a damper on the afternoon-evening for the Angels, who threw another tarpaulin over baseball’s most lethal lineup in a 6-1 victory Saturday over the New York Yankees in front of 54,008 in Yankee Stadium.

Scot Shields (four hits in three innings), Brendan Donnelly (one hit in one inning) and Francisco Rodriguez (two hitless innings) combined for six scoreless innings in relief of starter Aaron Sele, and the Angels won for the second time in the three-game series, limiting the mighty Yankees to one run in the two games.

This was no fluke for the Angels, who today will go for their first series sweep in Yankee Stadium since May 11-13, 1999. They are one of two teams -- Seattle is the other -- with a winning record in Yankee Stadium since 1996, improving to 22-19 with Saturday’s win. The Mariners are 25-20 in Yankee Stadium during the same span, in which the Yankees have won four World Series championships.

“The Yankees are an incredible club, on an incredible run, and they’ve taken it to just about everyone they’ve played,” Manager Mike Scioscia said after the Angels won for the 12th time in 16 games. “Our guys, for whatever reason, have played them as tough as anyone.”

Never was that more apparent than in 2002, when the Angels rallied to win Game 2 of the American League division series in New York and returned home to sweep the Yankees out of the playoffs en route to winning the World Series.

Games like the Angels have played this weekend -- they won, 5-0, Friday night and whipped the Yankees again Saturday behind fourth-inning home runs by Jose Guillen and Jeff DaVanon -- can set the tone should the teams meet again in October.

“We’ve played these guys tough in the past -- we have a good team, too,” Shields said. “This builds confidence if we have to play them in the postseason.”

Countered second baseman Adam Kennedy: “I think we already know we can play well here. I don’t think we need to build confidence. We just need wins, period.”

No matter how long they take.

Saturday’s game began at 1:08 p.m. EDT, and play was halted by a rain storm in the top of the fourth, with two outs, two on and a full count on right fielder Vladimir Guerrero.

Play resumed around 6 p.m., and by the time Rodriguez got pinch-hitter Ruben Sierra to ground to first base to end the game, it was 7:39 p.m., meaning about 6 1/2 hours had elapsed between the first and final pitch.

“I just tried to stay relaxed during the delay,” Shields said. “I watched TV, messed around ... anything to stay busy.”

Shields kept the Angels ahead after the delay, getting out of a first-and-second, two-out jam in the fourth inning and a first-and-third, two-out jam in the fifth, retiring Enrique Wilson on a fly to left field to end the fourth and Alex Rodriguez on a fly to right field to end the fifth.

From that point, the Yankees managed only one more baserunner against Shields, Donnelly and Rodriguez, and the Angels, who scored once in the second and three times in the fourth, added insurance runs on Curtis Pride’s double in the seventh and Garret Anderson’s double in the ninth. The Angels remain 1 1/2 games behind Oakland in the AL West.

“Shields really shut the door right away after the delay,” Kennedy said. “That was big.”

So was Guillen’s fourth-inning homer to left-center field, which ended a 1-1 tie. It came on an 0-and-2 pitch from starter Esteban Loaiza, two pitches after Guillen fouled a ball off his left ankle, and half an inning after he crashed into the left-field wall to catch Gary Sheffield’s third-inning drive.

Guillen, who has 24 homers and 93 runs batted in, suffered a bruised ankle and banged his left arm into the wall on the catch. He did not return after the delay and probably will sit out today’s series finale.

“The ankle is pretty sore -- I’ll have to deal with it for three or four days,” said Guillen, who hit .455 for Oakland in the division series last season despite playing with a broken bone in his left hand and sat out only one game after twisting his left knee and ankle in May.

“But you know what I’ve been through before, things that are way worse than this. I’ve dealt with some tough injuries. I’m not worried about this one.”

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AL Wild-Card Race

*--* W L GB Boston 69 52 -- Texas 69 52 -- ANGELS 69 54 1 Cleveland 63 61 7 1/2 Chicago 60 60 8 1/2

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