Angel Rookie Comes Up Big

The Angels arrived at their Manhattan hotel at 4 a.m. Friday after a demoralizing 18-inning loss to Toronto the night before, they had an erratic 22-year-old rookie slated to make his Yankee Stadium debut against baseball’s highest-paid lineup, and their bullpen was gassed, having combined for 9 1/3 innings Thursday.

In other words, the stars and the moons did not seem aligned for an Angel victory Friday night.

But the Angels received a celestial performance from Ervin Santana, a pair of home runs from the struggling Garret Anderson and Bengie Molina, and they walked out of Yankee Stadium feeling a whole lot better about themselves after a 4-1 victory.

Anderson, who had one home run in his last 23 games and one RBI in his last 16 games, ripped a two-run homer off Yankee starter Mike Mussina in the second inning, and two outs later, Molina ended an 0-for-19 slump with a solo homer to give the Angels an early 3-0 lead.

Santana, in his second start against the Yankees in six days, gave up one run and six hits, struck out five and walked two in 6 1/3 poise-filled innings, subduing a boisterous sellout crowd and helping the Angels end a four-game losing streak.

“I tell you what, for his first time in Yankee Stadium, being a young kid, that was pretty impressive,” Angel first baseman Darin Erstad said of Santana (6-4). “We had a tough time in Toronto. You want to play well, and it all starts with pitching.”

It also ends with good relief pitching. Brendan Donnelly retired Robinson Cano and Gary Sheffield with a runner on second to preserve a 3-1 lead in the seventh, and Scot Shields (scoreless eighth) and Francisco Rodriguez (scoreless ninth for his 25th save) finished up.

“When you’re not scoring runs, it puts a lot of pressure on the pitching staff, and it takes its toll,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “Ervin got us to a point where we could still use our [front-line relievers] to win. The fact Ervin gave us a chance to win and to let the bullpen do its job was big for us in light of the late game [Thursday night].”

With the early lead and constant guidance from Molina, the Angels’ veteran catcher, Santana, who has broken his great-start, awful-start trend with three consecutive wins, was able to pitch aggressively, without fear of one mistake beating him.

“He could relax and make pitches and not have each pitch be a breaking point of the game,” Scioscia said. “He could throw his breaking balls in fastball counts.... You’ve got to be oblivious to the stadium and the other lineup and just think about making pitches.”

With the Angels having scored four runs in their previous 50 innings, Scioscia shook up his lineup Friday, moving shortstop Orlando Cabrera from the bottom of the order to the second spot, Erstad from second to third, Vladimir Guerrero from third to fourth, and Anderson from fourth to fifth, the first time this season Anderson has batted out of the third or fourth spot.

“The bottom line is we need guys to start swinging the bats,” Scioscia said. “It doesn’t matter how they line up in the order.”

Guerrero, suffering from a calf injury, and Anderson, slowed by tendinitis in his knee, did much of the damage Friday. Guerrero led off the second with a single to center, and Anderson hammered a 1-and-1 Mussina pitch into the right-field seats for his 12th home run of the season and first since July 6.

“He got some terrific extension and crushed it,” Scioscia said. “It’s good to see Garret break out and drive the ball.”

Two outs later, Molina’s ninth homer made it 3-0. Tino Martinez’s solo shot off Santana pulled the Yankees within 3-1 in the seventh, but the Angels got the run back in the ninth after Guerrero and Anderson singled and advanced on Finley’s groundout.

With the infield in, Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez knocked down Juan Rivera’s grounder to his left with a dive and threw Rivera out, but Guerrero scored for a 4-1 lead.

The Angels have now won six of eight games against the Yankees this season and are 49-46 against them since 1996, the only team in baseball with a winning record against New York in Manager Joe Torre’s era. The Angels are also 9-4 in Yankee Stadium over the last 13 games.

“There’s no rhyme or reason to it,” Scioscia said, “other than we’ve played good baseball against them.”