Angels Run Afoul of Harden Fast Rule

The deeper the Angels go into September, the deeper they slip into their offensive funk, and if they don’t put some kind of charge into their bats -- and very soon -- they’ll find themselves in a hole too deep to dig out of.

With the team they have been chasing for two months in the American League West finally in the opposing dugout and the biggest series of the season upon them, the Angels managed only seven hits in a 6-3 loss to the Oakland Athletics in front of a sellout crowd of 43,503 in Angel Stadium on Friday night.

A rare subpar start from Kelvim Escobar, who was tagged for three runs in the first inning, was too much for the feeble Anaheim offense to overcome, and the Angels fell three games behind the A’s with nine games to play.

Rich Harden (11-6), whose fastball was clocked at up to 99 mph, threw seven solid innings, giving up two runs and four hits. Eric Byrnes had three hits, including a two-run homer in the fourth inning, and Erubiel Durazo had three hits for the A’s, who bounced back nicely from a three-game sweep at the hands of the Texas Rangers.

The slumping Angels have lost five of six games and fell to 10-12 in September. They have been limited to three runs or fewer in eight of their last 11 losses.

“Some guys are trying to do too much and they’re being taken out of their game, some guys are flat-out in a slump, and some guys are defensive at the plate,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “You keep waiting for it, waiting for that little spark, and right now it’s few and far between, the times that we’ve been able to put pressure on the other guys.”

Scioscia shook up the top of his batting order for the third time in four days, dropping Chone Figgins and David Eckstein, who were in the first and second spots Tuesday and Wednesday, to ninth and eighth, moving Darin Erstad to leadoff and Troy Glaus to second.

Figgins was hitless in his previous 11 at-bats and stuck in a five-for-33 slump, Eckstein was in a four-for-19 skid, and Glaus had the second-highest on-base percentage (.369) among Angel regulars, making him a better table-setting option for the heart of the order.

“We have to feed Vladdy, G.A. and Jose in the middle,” Scioscia said before the game, referring to Vladimir Guerrero, Garret Anderson and Jose Guillen. “Eck and Figgy have been grinding it out, and maybe a little change of scenery will help them. Mainly, we need to get the middle of the lineup set up.”

But the middle of the order seems to be the Angels’ biggest problem, their one-for-10 combined effort Friday setting the tone for a sputtering offense.

Guerrero may have hit four home runs in the previous six games, but he appears to be getting more anxious with every plate appearance. In his first three at-bats Friday night, Guerrero swung at all eight pitches, several of them out of the strike zone, resulting in foul balls, a strikeout and two weakly hit outs.

He finally took a first-pitch ball from reliever Jim Mecir in the eighth -- and blooped a single to left on the next pitch.

Anderson has two singles in his last 25 at-bats, has driven in two runs in eight games, and the center fielder hasn’t seemed right since aggravating a left knee injury last week.

The tendinitis in his back knee appears to be affecting him at the plate and in the field -- with a good sprint, he probably could have caught Byrnes’ double in the sixth inning, but he pulled up and played it off the wall.

“I think his knee is bothering him, absolutely,” Scioscia said. “But I don’t think it’s affecting him at the plate as much as it is in center field.”

Anderson wouldn’t say if his knee is hurting. “I’m on the field playing, that’s all that matters,” he said. “If I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t be out there playing.”

Guillen is five for 30 with two RBIs in his last nine games and seems to be just as anxious as Guerrero at times, rarely cutting down on his swing with two strikes. With two on in the eighth Friday, Guillen swung hard at reliever Chad Bradford’s first pitch and grounded weakly to short to end the inning.

Compounding the Angels’ problems: Escobar, who had allowed three runs in 23 innings of his last three starts, gave up doubles to Mark Kotsay and Mark McLemore and a single to Eric Chavez to open the first, and Scott Hatteberg’s sacrifice fly and Durazo’s run-scoring double made it 3-0 A’s before the Angels even came to bat.

Erstad had two hits, Glaus had two RBIs, and rookie Dallas McPherson homered in the ninth, but the heart of the Angel order is barely beating.

“It’s been tough, because everyone knows on paper we have the best team,” Escobar said. “But this game is crazy.”