Mood Swing Is Best Angel Hitters Can Muster

The euphoria of Friday night’s pulsating victory, in which the Angels pounded four home runs and 15 hits and moved within a game of Oakland in the American League West, dissolved into a depressing Saturday for an Angel offense that barely showed a pulse in a 2-0 loss to the Texas Rangers.

Emergency starter Joaquin Benoit blanked the Angels on two hits for four innings, and a tag-team of six relievers combined to complete the shutout in front of 41,233 in Angel Stadium, dropping the Angels two games behind the A’s with 14 games remaining.

Right-hander Kelvim Escobar was superb again in defeat -- this is a broken record the Angels can’t seem to pry off their turntable -- giving up one run and three hits and striking out seven in eight innings, falling to 10-11 despite lowering his earned-run average to 3.75.

The Angels, who managed all of six singles Saturday, have been shut out nine times, five times in games Escobar has started, and Escobar has received the least support (3.77 runs a game) of any Angel starter.

An Angel offense that leads the major leagues with a .285 average and ranks sixth in the AL in runs has been shut out three times in the last 11 games, including Escobar’s 1-0 loss to Toronto on Sept. 8, preventing the Angels from catching the A’s despite trailing by no more than two games during that span.

“You hear people say that down the stretch, if you get good starting pitching every day, you’re going to have a good shot at making the run you need, and we have,” second baseman Adam Kennedy said.

“It’s been the offense that’s holding us back. What did we have, six hits today? This is nothing you’d expect from this offense. You can understand this happening every once in a while, but a couple times a week? It’s frustrating.... I wish there was an explanation.”

The Angels have two players in the middle of their lineup -- Vladimir Guerrero and Jose Guillen -- who have combined for 59 home runs and 217 runs batted in, and two other power threats in Garret Anderson and Troy Glaus.

David Eckstein (.283) and Darin Erstad (.302) are capable table-setters at the top of the order, and Kennedy (.278, 10 homers, 47 RBIs), Bengie Molina (.281, 10 homers, 52 RBIs) and Chone Figgins (.294, 15 triples, 57 RBIs) are having solid seasons at the bottom.

But the Angels, on the whole, are a free-swinging club that doesn’t draw many walks -- they rank last in the AL in that category -- and haven’t been able to manufacture as many runs as they did with the unselfish, little-ball approach that worked so well in 2002.

They’re more mashers through the middle, so as explosive as they can be some nights, like Friday, they are just as susceptible to being shut down, as they were Saturday.

“We’ve been very inconsistent this year,” said Erstad, who grounded to second with the bases loaded to close the seventh inning Saturday, ending the Angels’ best scoring threat.

“It’s encouraging because we can disappear for two or three days and then come back like a ball of fire. But as phenomenal as we can be, we can’t string it together on certain days. We’re dealing with a different animal.”

They dealt with a different starting pitcher than they expected Saturday when right-hander Juan Dominguez was scratched because of an injured right knee and flu-like symptoms.

Benoit stepped in and struck out six in four innings before departing after an inning-opening walk to Molina in the fifth. The Rangers took a 1-0 lead in the third when Laynce Nix singled and Rod Barajas’ double drove in Nix.

Manager Buck Showalter, taking advantage of expanded rosters and a well-stocked bullpen, then played mix-and-match, using left-hander Erasmo Ramirez, right-hander Jeff Nelson, left-hander Ron Mahay, right-hander Doug Brocail, left-hander Brian Shouse and right-hander Francisco Cordero over the last five innings.

Four Rangers pitched in the seventh, and Cordero threw 37 pitches over the last two innings to record his 45th save.

“We kept getting a different pitcher every inning,” Eckstein said. “It was kind of hard to get locked in.”

And it’s hard for the Angels to zero in on the A’s when their offense can’t get locked in on a regular basis.

“Still, I’d rather be two games out than 25 games out,” Erstad said. “We can’t get over the hump right now, but we still have a chance.”