Angels, Lackey Three Falling

It all unraveled so quickly for Angel right-hander John Lackey in the fifth inning Saturday night that Manager Mike Scioscia had neither the time nor inclination to warm up a reliever before all the damage was done.

Cruising through four innings with a two-hitter and looking so dominant he struck out six in a row from the first through third innings, Lackey fell apart in the fifth, giving up four consecutive two-out hits during a five-run rally that propelled the Seattle Mariners to a 6-3 victory before an announced sellout of 44,012 in Angel Stadium.

The last-place Mariners, who rank last in the American League in batting and second to last in runs, have outscored the Angels, 26-9, in three consecutive wins and have held Vladimir Guerrero and Garret Anderson, the Angels’ third and fourth hitters, to two hits in 22 at-bats, one run and one run batted in.

The Angels have held the lead for only two of 27 innings in this series, and their lead over Texas in the AL West has been trimmed from 8 1/2 games to six games in three days.

Seattle right-hander Ryan Franklin gave up two runs and five hits in 6 1/3 innings to gain the victory Saturday, and the Angels lost three in a row for only the second time this season, the first streak coming May 7-9 to Detroit (twice) and Cleveland (once).

“I don’t think anyone expected us to run away with the division,” Angel second baseman Adam Kennedy said. “It’s not surprising that we got a lead, but I don’t expect Texas and Oakland and Seattle to fade away. They’re going to be there.”

A rotation that ranks second in the league with a 3.81 earned-run average has separated the Angels from the rest of the West, but in the last six games, Angel starters have gone 1-4 with a 6.81 ERA, giving up 27 earned runs in 35 2/3 innings. Ace Bartolo Colon, Jarrod Washburn and Lackey have lost to Seattle.

“Our starting pitchers have given us a chance to win virtually every night,” Scioscia said. “Things have gotten a little out of hand the last few nights, but all in all, we haven’t lost one ounce of confidence in what has been the heart of the team, our starting pitching.”

That pitching looked strong for four innings Saturday night, and the Angels staked Lackey to a 1-0 lead in the third when Jose Molina reached on an infield single, took third on Chone Figgins’ double and scored on Darin Erstad’s groundout to shortstop.

The way Lackey was pitching, it appeared a one-run lead might hold up. After walking Richie Sexson to put runners on first and second with two outs in the first, Lackey struck out Adrian Beltre, Jeremy Reed, Willie Bloomquist, Mike Morse, Miguel Olivo and Ichiro Suzuki, all swinging.

But with one out in the fifth, Bloomquist singled to right, stole second and scored on Morse’s single to left just ahead of left fielder Juan Rivera’s one-hop throw home.

Morse took second on the throw but made an ill-advised attempt to take third on Olivo’s grounder to short and was out. The score was 1-1, and with one more out, Lackey would have escaped relatively unscathed.

But Lackey has a history of getting burned by the big inning and succumbed to a flurry of Mariner hits.

Suzuki singled to right to put runners on first and third, and Lackey hung a first-pitch curve to Randy Winn, who lined it into center for an RBI single and a 2-1 lead. Raul Ibanez worked the count from 0-and-2 to 3-and-2 before his RBI single to left-center, and Sexson capped the rally with a two-run double to right-center that made it 5-1.

“He couldn’t minimize damage,” Scioscia said. “He couldn’t make the one pitch to get out of the inning.”

Said Lackey: “It’s not like I got crushed. I gave up a lot of singles to a hot team.”

The Angels pulled within 5-2 on Kennedy’s run-scoring single in the seventh and had runners on first and second with one out, but Beltre, the Mariner third baseman, fielded Figgins’ sharp grounder, tagged Curtis Pride and threw to first to complete the inning-ending double play.

Suzuki’s sacrifice fly in the top of the ninth offset Rivera’s leadoff home run in the bottom of the ninth for the Angels, who aren’t quite ready to panic as they try to avoid a four-game sweep today.

“We play 162 games, man, there’s going to be streaks in both directions,” Lackey said. “I think we’re going to be fine.”