Crazy Eighth Leads to 6-1 Angel Victory

The Angels are not too proud to accept charity, so when the Seattle Mariners collapsed in the eighth inning Thursday night, committing three errors that led to four unearned runs, the Angels gladly took the gift and got out of town.

Their 6-1 victory over the Mariners in front of 28,497 at Safeco Field enabled the Angels to salvage a split of a four-game series and remain two games behind the Oakland Athletics in the American League West with 16 games remaining.

Who’s to quibble with the manner in which an important win was achieved?

“I’m calling ourselves lucky right there,” Angel left fielder Jose Guillen said. “Everything went our way.”

Aaron Sele (9-3) threw five serviceable innings, giving up one run and five hits and striking out Randy Winn to get out of a bases-loaded jam in the second. Reliever Scot Shields gave up one hit in three dominant innings.

Then the Angels took advantage of rare breakdowns by Mariner second baseman Bret Boone, who won Gold Glove awards in 2002 and 2003, and veteran catcher Dan Wilson, to blow the game open in the eighth.

With a 2-1 lead, Adam Kennedy drew a one-out walk from Seattle starter Jamie Moyer, and David Eckstein, who entered the game in a 10-for-60 slump, doubled to left to put runners on second and third.

With the infield in, Darin Erstad hit a one-hopper to Boone, whose low throw home hit Erstad’s bat in front of the plate. The ball bounced high over Wilson’s head and to the backstop, allowing two runs to score and Erstad to take second.

Guerrero was intentionally walked, and Garret Anderson’s double-play ball rolled through Boone’s legs, allowing Erstad to score and Guerrero to take third. Dallas McPherson, pinch-running for Anderson, stole second, but Wilson’s throw bounced into center field for an error, and Guerrero scored to make it 6-1.

“When you get breaks, you have to take advantage of them,” Erstad said. “We did that tonight.”

Their timing couldn’t have been better.

“We’re getting into a territory where these are almost all must-win games,” Sele said. “Hopefully, this will get us going back in the right direction. We’ve got to put pressure on Oakland by winning.”

The Angels took the field Thursday with a sense of urgency, not only because they knew Oakland had won, but because they scored only two runs on 10 hits in their two previous games, both one-run losses to the Mariners.

“We’ve been very inconsistent,” Erstad said. “We better find it, or we’re going to be out of this thing pretty quickly.”

The Angels put the leadoff batter on base in only four of 18 innings Tuesday and Wednesday, and Thursday brought more of the same, when Moyer, who was 0-9 with a 6.52 earned-run average in his last 16 games, retired the first nine batters.

But Eckstein opened the fourth with a single, and Erstad followed with a hit-and-run single, advancing Eckstein to third. Guerrero flied to left, but Anderson hit into a run-scoring fielder’s choice, tying the score, 1-1.

Kennedy doubled to right to open the sixth, and Eckstein dropped a sacrifice bunt, moving Kennedy to third. The Mariners brought their infield in, and Erstad grounded out to second, Kennedy scoring for a 2-1 lead.

“It’s on Eck and me,” Erstad said. “We get on base, it gets us rolling.”

Sele did his job, despite allowing 10 baserunners in five innings -- he walked five, including two intentional walks to leadoff batter Ichiro Suzuki, which drew the wrath of Safeco fans pulling for Suzuki to break George Sisler’s single-season hit record.

But both times the decisions paid off, as Sele struck out Winn to end the second and got Winn to ground out to end the fourth with two on.

Shields replaced Sele to start the sixth and retired nine of 10 batters.

“You saw the value of Shields tonight,” Scioscia said. “He was everything from middle relief to set-up man. He gave us three crisp innings at a crucial time.”

And the Mariners gave the Angels one soggy inning at a critical time, keeping the Angels in the playoff picture.