Angels Taken Off on Their Shields in 10th

Whether Marco Scutaro violated a baseball rule by running inside the first-base line on his 10th-inning sacrifice bunt Saturday was irrelevant to Angel reliever Scot Shields.

Had Shields not rushed the play, bobbled the ball, drifted dangerously toward the line, put himself in a position where he had to make an off-balance throw over Scutaro’s shoulder to first, second baseman Chone Figgins, who was covering the bag, never would have been screened on the play.

It was this confluence of mistakes that cost the Angels a game, with Shields’ throw bouncing past Figgins and into right field, allowing Nick Swisher to score all the way from first to give Oakland a 1-0 victory over the Angels before 25,280 in McAfee Coliseum.

“It was my fault,” said Shields, the versatile setup man who has appeared in seven of 11 games. “I didn’t field it cleanly, and [Scutaro] was in my way. I tried to get it over him. It’s a play we work on all the time in spring training. To lose a game like that, especially with the way [Jarrod] Washburn pitched, it hurts inside.”

Washburn, the Angel left-hander, threw his best game since his shutout of the White Sox in Chicago last July 7, blanking the A’s on four hits in eight innings, striking out seven and walking two.

In matching Oakland right-hander Rich Harden (eight shutout innings, four hits, eight strikeouts) pitch for pitch, Washburn displayed excellent command of his fastball and breaking ball and so baffled the A’s that, according to Swisher, “Guys were talking in the dugout, saying, ‘Is this guy throwing an invisi-ball, or what?’ ”

On Washburn’s 113th and final pitch, he struck out cleanup batter Eric Chavez looking at a full-count, knee-high fastball with runners on first and third to end the eighth, after Eric Byrnes’ two-out single and Angel third baseman Maicer Izturis’ fielding error put Washburn in the jam.

Kiko Calero (2-0) threw two scoreless relief innings for the A’s, and Angel reliever Brendan Donnelly blanked Oakland in the ninth. Shields started the 10th and gave up a leadoff single to Swisher.

The bunt is about as foreign to the take-and-rake A’s as the $100-million payroll -- they had 25 sacrifices in 2004 -- but with Scutaro, the No. 9 hitter, at bat, Manager Ken Macha opted for small ball.

Scutaro dropped what appeared to be a routine bunt toward first -- until Shields entered the picture and botched it. Figgins didn’t see the throw until the ball bounced past him, and because Shields had a poor grip and got nothing on the throw, the ball died in the grass down the line.

Right fielder Vladimir Guerrero eventually retrieved it and made a strong throw home, but it was too high to catch Swisher.

The game was over.

The self-flogging was only beginning.

“I had a glove on it and made a bad throw; I gave Figgins no chance,” Shields said. “The blame is definitely all on me. I should have slowed down, gotten a grip on it. I had plenty of time, but when the play was going on, I thought I had to hurry.”

Angel Manager Mike Scioscia hadn’t seen a replay by his postgame news conference, but from the first-base dugout, “I thought Scutaro was inside the line,” he said. “Shields and Figgins were screened. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the call.”

Shields, who had a better angle, said he “couldn’t really tell” whether Scutaro was inside the line.

“I don’t think he was,” Shields said. “I was the one crossing the line. Him being in front of me was my fault.”

Washburn planned to take the entire Angel pitching staff out to dinner Saturday night, and the sour taste of the loss probably put a little damper on the proceedings. But Shields, as tough as the loss was on him, said he wouldn’t dwell on it for too long.

“I’ll think about it [Saturday night] but after dinner, it will be out of my mind,” Shields said. “We’ll bounce back, we’ll let this one go. But I tell you what, this was a pretty good game to watch, up until the end.”