Home Runs Get Angels Up to Speed

They say Tampa Bay center fielder Joey Gathright can jump over a car with a running start.

Gathright can also leg out a double on a sharply hit ball to shallow right-center and score from second base when Angel starter Paul Byrd’s pickoff attempt goes awry.

A diving catch in shallow left-center off Maicer Izturis’ sinking liner to end the fourth inning? No problem.

But Gathright, who runs a 6.1-second 60-yard dash and has been clocked at 3.3 seconds from home plate to first base on a bunt, could not sprint the Devil Rays to victory over the Angels by himself Friday night.

Not when the Angel pitchers suddenly became next-to-unhittable and their bats woke up in time to deliver a 5-4 victory at Angel Stadium and keep the Angels (63-46) atop the American League West by one game over the Oakland Athletics, who had earlier defeated the Kansas City Royals.

The Angels’ three solo home runs -- by Orlando Cabrera in the first inning and back-to-back shots in the seventh by Bengie Molina and Casey Kotchman -- were one better than the two solo homers hit by Tampa Bay -- by Aubrey Huff and Travis Lee.

“They have a lot of young players, like young cowboys,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said of the Devil Rays. “They get after it.”

It started with Gathright, who led off the game with the double before coming home on Byrd’s throwing error.

“Just amazing,” Byrd said of Gathright’s speed. “I’ve never seen anyone score that quickly from second.”

At the end of the third inning, the two crossed paths and Byrd got Gathright to smile.

“I told him, ‘You’re too fast, I don’t know how to stop you,’ ” Byrd said. “He just laughed. You can’t walk him.... That’s the kiss of death.”

As was Byrd’s stuff, for most of the night, and that of setup man Scot Shields (7-6), who got the win, and closer Francisco Rodriguez, who gave up Lee’s two-out homer but rebounded well enough from last weekend’s nightmare at Yankee Stadium, where he walked four batters, to earn his 26th save.

The three had combined to retire 13 consecutive Devil Rays before Lee’s homer.

“I feel fine, even though I fell to the full count there,” said Rodriguez, who had blown two of his three previous save opportunities after converting 13 in a row.

“The velocity was there and the mechanics were right. I’m just happy to be out there again.”

Jeff DaVanon, batting in the No. 3 spot as the designated hitter, was also happy to be out there, what with his two hits, two stolen bases and two runs scored.

Already leading, 1-0, on Cabrera’s fifth homer, Garret Anderson’s sharp single to right drove in DaVanon three batters later.

The Angels went up 3-1 in the third when Vladimir Guerrero’s sacrifice fly scored DaVanon.

The Devil Rays tied the score at 3-3 in the fifth when Nick Green scored on Jorge Cantu’s sacrifice fly -- Huff’s homer came in the fourth -- and starter Doug Waechter (4-7) had retired 11 consecutive Angels before Molina took him into the bullpen for his 11th homer on the first pitch of the seventh.

Then Kotchman, who had been a combined 0 for 14 with the Angels in a pair of 2005 call-ups, followed with his first career home run, a towering drive into the right-field seats.

“You just have to make the most of your opportunities,” he said.

That the Angels did.

Especially playing without a pair of left-handed bats in the benched Steve Finley, mired in a five-for-30 slump, and the injured Darin Erstad, who tweaked his right hip running across the pitcher’s mound Thursday while chasing down a popup.

“It’s day-to-day; we’ll see how it feels,” Erstad said. “We have to try to get the muscles to relax.”

Could the disabled list be in Erstad’s future?

“No. Oh no,” he said. “It’s just a couple-of-days thing.”

The A’s, looking forward to next week’s showdown in the East Bay, are hoping the Angels’ divisional lead is of the same stock, so they can pull a Gathright and simply jump over them.

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Slimming down

*--* THROUGH JULY 6 Team W L Pct. GB Angels 52 32 619 -- Texas 43 40 518 8 1/2 Oakland 41 42 494 10 1/2 Seattle 35 48 422 16 1/2

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*--* THROUGH AUG. 5 Team W L Pct. GB Angels 63 46 578 -- Oakland 62 47 569 1 Texas 54 54 500 8 1/2 Seattle 47 61 435 15 1/2

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