Thunder Gets to Lackey

When the Angels arrived at U.S. Cellular Field a few hours before Sunday’s game against the Chicago White Sox, the South Side was being deluged by rain; thunder and lightning cracked overhead; and the chances of any ball being played seemed remote.

But a perfect storm, it wasn’t. The skies eventually cleared, the rain subsided, and after a 42-minute delay, a rainout seemed far more palatable to the Angels than what transpired in the first four innings.

Angel right-hander John Lackey delivered the team’s worst start of the season, giving up eight runs and nine hits in three innings, and a miserable trip ended in dreary fashion, with an 11-2 loss to the White Sox in front of a crowd of 19,859.

Angel starters have stepped up in the face of a dizzying array of injuries to the lineup, combining for a 12-5 record and 3.90 earned-run average in May, but Lackey didn’t make it to the fourth inning. The eight earned runs were the most allowed by an Angel starter this season, and the three innings matched the shortest outing of Lackey’s career.

Ben Weber relieved Lackey and gave up three more runs in the fourth, and the score was so lopsided that by the sixth inning, No. 3 catcher Josh Paul was playing left field and first baseman Robb Quinlan was in right field for the Angels.

“It was a bad end to a bad trip, I guess,” Lackey said.

Still, after a 1-5 trip at Toronto and Chicago, in which they lost four games by one run and three in the opponent’s last at-bat, the division-leading Angels could take some solace in the fact that they gave up little ground in the American League West. They were 3 1/2 games ahead of Texas and Oakland when they left and are 2 1/2 games ahead of the Rangers now.

“Every team is going to hit a bump in the road,” shortstop David Eckstein said. “It’s nice when you hit a stretch like this and you lose only one game to the pack.”

It was a friend and foe who helped fell the Angels on Sunday. Former Angel Scott Schoeneweis, who was traded to the White Sox last July, gave up only two runs and five hits in seven innings to gain the victory, improving his record to 5-2.

“I really just tried to concentrate on treating it like any other game, because I knew there would be emotions there,” Schoeneweis said. “The offense definitely helped me out, and I was able to concentrate on moving the fastball around.”

Schoeneweis was demoted to the bullpen in June 2002 so the Angels could promote a promising young right-hander from triple-A Salt Lake and insert him into their rotation. That pitcher? John Lackey.

The irony was not lost on Schoeneweis.

“I definitely knew we’d be matched up,” said Schoeneweis, who struck out four and walked one in a 93-pitch performance. “He had a great second half that year and deserved to be in the rotation. He pitched Game 7 of the World Series. He just had a bad day today.”

It began with a 47-pitch first inning that Manager Mike Scioscia said “took a lot out of” Lackey and a four-run second that was capped by Jose Valentin’s three-run home run.

Second baseman Willie Harris, who had three singles and a triple, led off the first with a single and scored on Frank Thomas’ RBI double. Lackey (3-6) struck out Carlos Lee for the second out but walked Valentin and Paul Konerko to load the bases.

Ross Gload then blooped a two-run single into shallow left-center field, just beyond the reach of a diving Eckstein, and the White Sox were up, 3-1. Harris, Thomas and Lee each singled before Valentin’s homer in the second.

“I threw a lot of pitches in the first inning, but I could have gotten out of that with one run,” Lackey said. “I made a good pitch to Gload, I jammed him, and he got a hit. I pitched around the guy ahead of him, and he ended up hurting me.”

Eckstein singled in the first, extending his hitting streak to 15 games, and scored on Jose Guillen’s RBI single, and Vladimir Guerrero hit a solo home run in the fourth, his 12th of the season.

But outside of those three hits, the Angels had only three other baserunners in the game, as Schoeneweis and relievers Damaso Marte and Billy Koch shut them down.

“He had good command, his ball was down all day, he didn’t have a lot of deep counts, and he used both sides of the plate,” Scioscia said of Schoeneweis. “He had his good sinker going, and he was able to get some sliders under some swings.”