Off Switch Lights Angels

Shortstop Orlando Cabrera took his family to the San Diego Zoo. Reliever Scot Shields took his kids to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch and spent the rest of the day relaxing. Reliever Brendan Donnelly rented a few movies and spent most of the day on his couch.

Players usually don’t care for off days, but Monday’s respite could not have come at a better time for the Angels, whose grueling 1-5 trip through Toronto and New York ended with a pair of losses in which they coughed up four-run, eighth-inning leads to the Yankees, included an 18-inning loss to the Blue Jays, and sapped their bullpen, which combined for 26 2/3 innings, four losses and four blown saves in six games.

“The day off was huge,” Donnelly said. “We had a tough trip, but we could step away, get away from baseball for a day, and come back with a clear head and rested body. It was a well-timed day off. And I think I’m speaking for everybody.”

Whether it was the day off, a return home or a visit from a team whose struggles are greater than their own, the Angels looked refreshed in a 10-1 victory over the Baltimore Orioles in Angel Stadium on Tuesday night, a welcomed breather after the high-wire, high-stress losses in New York over the weekend.

Vladimir Guerrero crushed a pair of two-run home runs and had a run-scoring single off Oriole starter Sidney Ponson, Garret Anderson hit a solo home run and a double, and Cabrera added a two-run double.

Angel ace Bartolo Colon (13-6) was superb over seven innings, limiting Baltimore to one run and 10 hits, striking out seven and walking none to help the Angels maintain a one-game American League West lead over the sizzling Oakland Athletics. Esteban Yan pitched a scoreless eighth and ninth.

“It was a tough trip, and the bullpen was used so much I told Yan and Francisco [Rodriguez, Angel closer] I needed to do something for you guys,” Colon said through an interpreter. “I knew the importance of going deep in the game, for the bullpen and the team overall.”

While the Orioles, who have lost seven in a row and 15 of 17 games to fall 9 1/2 games behind Boston in the AL East, spent Monday losing to the Chicago White Sox, flying across the country and reeling from the announcement that slugger Rafael Palmeiro was suspended for 10 days for violating baseball’s steroid policy, the Angels spent the day relaxing. And it showed Tuesday night.

“Because of the number of innings we played and the wear and tear on the bullpen, it was important to have a day for guys to recover physically,” said Angel first baseman Darin Erstad, who doubled and scored in the third inning and had a run-scoring single in the eighth.

“But mentally, I wasn’t concerned because I know what kind of personalities we have, and the mind-set we have as a group. This wasn’t the first time we’ve all struggled, but we’ve bounced back before. We know we’re capable of doing it, so we gain confidence from it.”

Tuesday night’s win was like chicken soup for the soul for the Angels, who hadn’t won by more than three runs since a 5-0 win over Kansas City on July 3. The Angels scored in the first inning on Guerrero’s RBI single and took a 4-0 lead in the third when Erstad doubled and Guerrero and Anderson hit back-to-back home runs, the 20th of the season for Guerrero and the 13th for Anderson.

Javy Lopez’s double and B.J. Surhoff’s run-scoring single in the fourth pulled the Orioles within 4-1, and Baltimore threatened in the fifth when it put two on with one out. But Colon, who struck out Lopez with two on to end the first, got cleanup batter Miguel Tejada to ground into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning.

Erstad walked to open the fifth, and Guerrero followed with a towering fly ball that just cleared the glove of left fielder Eric Byrnes, who, as he hung on the fence, punched the wall in frustration.

Guerrero’s 21st homer and 25th career multiple-homer game gave the Angels a 6-1 lead, Cabrera’s two-run double in the sixth made it 8-1, and the Angels added two more in the eighth off reliever Steve Kline on RBI singles by Erstad and Juan Rivera.

“There’s a lot of emotion when you lose close games, and it was good to let a little air out Monday and get away from the park,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said.

“But if we had a game [Monday], I’m sure we would have come out with the same kind of energy. These guys are fine.”