A Wild Loss for the Angels

No wonder Bengie Molina was dressed and gone before reporters emerged from Manager Mike Scioscia’s office after the Angels’ teeth-gnashing, 3-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, who scored the winning run on Angel reliever Brendan Donnelly’s wild pitch in the 10th inning Wednesday night.

The last thing the Angel catcher probably wanted to do was rehash and dissect what may have been his most forgettable game of the year, beginning with an 0-for-5 night in which Molina stranded six runners, and ending with him unable to block a Donnelly slider in the dirt, the kind of pitch Molina has blocked countless times.

“He’s a great competitor, he’s one of our best clutch hitters,” first baseman Darin Erstad said. “Hey, he’s human.”

So, apparently, are the rest of the Angel hitters, who after their torrid June have slipped into the same funk that prevented them from opening much of a lead in the American League West in April and May.

After scoring 20 runs while winning the first three games of a four-game series against the New York Yankees last week, the Angels have lost three straight and scored three runs in their last 32 innings.

They are batting .237 with four home runs and 39 runs in 13 games since the All-Star break. Wednesday, they failed to score after putting runners on first and third with one out in the eighth inning and first and second with one out in the 10th.

And now the Oakland Athletics, who were 11 games behind the Angels on June 27, are four games back.

“September is the month you have urgency -- right now, we just have to play day to day,” pitcher Bartolo Colon, who gave up two runs and seven hits in seven strong innings Wednesday night, said through an interpreter. “No one talks about the Oakland A’s. We need to play better; that’s the bottom line.”

The Angels had 10 hits in the Rogers Centre on Wednesday, including Vladimir Guerrero’s solo home run in the first inning and a double and two singles by Erstad, who drove in the team’s second run in the third inning.

But they went two for 10 with runners in scoring position, the decisive at-bats coming in the eighth, when Steve Finley struck out and Molina grounded out with runners at first and third against Jason Frasor, and the 10th, when Molina grounded back to closer Miguel Batista with the bases loaded to end the inning.

Molina is hitless in his last 16 at-bats, his average falling from .319 to .299.

“We’ve been down this road before -- we’re seeing some of the same things that were happening earlier in the season,” Scioscia said. “We had a lot of chances tonight. We had guys in scoring position and didn’t get it done. We had every chance to win this game on the offensive side, and we couldn’t get it going.”

The Angels lost it in the bottom of the 10th when Donnelly relieved Scot Shields, who threw two scoreless innings. Russ Adams led off with a single and took second on Frank Catalanotto’s bunt. Vernon Wells was intentionally walked, and Aaron Hill reached on an infield single, third baseman Chone Figgins saving a run with a diving stop of Hill’s grounder to the hole.

With one out and the bases loaded, Scioscia pulled Finley in, stationing the center fielder near the second-base bag, the Angels’ first five-man infield alignment of the season. They never got a chance to see if it would work.

Donnelly’s first pitch was a slider that bounced in the dirt and caromed off Molina, who couldn’t move to his left far enough or quick enough to block the pitch or keep it in front of him. The ball rolled toward the backstop, and Adams scored easily.

“With the catchers we have I feel comfortable throwing the ball wherever,” Donnelly said, when asked if he was conscious of keeping his pitches up with the winning run on third. “The pitch was a little to the left, and with the slider spin, it kicked just enough away to where there was no play at home, either.”