Angels Encounter a Royal Disaster

Crummy starting pitching? Overaggressive defense? It seemed as if the Angels could have suffered a complete collapse Tuesday night and still defeated the Kansas City Royals, a team that requires the use of a thesaurus to characterize the depths to which it has plunged.

The Royals committed an error, threw a wild pitch and watched helplessly as a passed ball scooted toward the backstop during the decisive fifth inning of a 7-5 loss to the Angels in front of 40,183 at Angel Stadium. It was the Angels’ seventh win in a row.

Kansas City (44-79), on track for the worst season in its 36-year history, squandered leads of 3-0, 4-1 and 5-4 while dropping to 0-6 this season against an Angel team that received five mediocre innings from starter John Lackey and a costly defensive blunder by right fielder Vladimir Guerrero. The Angels also stranded a season-high 16 runners.

“If you’re leaving 16 men on base and you’re scoring two or three runs, you’re going to be concerned,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “But we got seven runs on the board, and that’s certainly enough to win a ballgame.”

Adam Kennedy tied a career high by collecting four of the Angels’ 15 hits during a victory that allowed them to remain tied with the Boston Red Sox in the wild-card standings and half a game behind the Oakland Athletics in the American League West.

“We’re just playing great baseball right now,” said Jose Guillen, whose two-run homer in the third extended his season record for runs batted in to 98. “We’re coming together at the right time.”

Bengie Molina led off the fifth with a routine grounder to second baseman Desi Relaford, whose throw pulled first baseman Matt Stairs off the bag.

Molina went to second on Kennedy’s single just out of the reach of shortstop Angel Berroa, and both runners moved up a base on a pitch that got past catcher John Buck.

Chone Figgins then grounded to third baseman Randa, whose tag on Molina sliding back into third base was late, allowing the Angels to load the bases with no out.

Molina tied the score, 5-5, when he scored on reliever Dennys Reyes’ wild pitch that bounced well in front of the plate, and David Eckstein put the Angels ahead to stay with his run-scoring groundout.

Kennedy’s sacrifice fly in the sixth made it 7-5 and helped mitigate the damage created by Lackey (11-10), who gave up seven hits and five runs in his shortest start since a three-inning stint May 30 against the Chicago White Sox.

“The bats really picked me up,” said Lackey, who also benefited from four scoreless innings by the bullpen.

First baseman Darin Erstad and catcher Molina made strong defensive contributions, with Erstad scooping third baseman Figgins’ throw in the dirt in the sixth with a runner on third and Molina twice throwing out runners attempting to steal second.

Guerrero cost the Angels a couple runs in the first when he charged forward on Calvin Pickering’s two-out sinking liner and tried to catch the ball inches off the ground. Instead, the ball bounced past Guerrero to the wall, allowing the Royals to clear the bases and Pickering to jog to third base with a triple.

There was better news in the bullpen. Francisco Rodriguez became the fastest Angel reliever to record 100 strikeouts in a season -- 65 1/3 innings -- when he struck out Abraham Nunez in the eighth. Rodriguez became the fifth Angel reliever to accomplish the feat and first since Troy Percival in 1996.

Percival struck out two of the three batters he faced in the ninth to record his 25th save. He has posted at least 25 saves in nine consecutive seasons, the longest active streak in the majors.

“It just means I’ve been around a long time,” Percival said.