Class Is Out in This Series

The Angels and Washington Nationals stopped lobbing verbal grenades at each other long enough to slip in a nifty little baseball game Wednesday night, with Washington closer Chad Cordero pitching out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the bottom of the ninth inning to preserve the Nationals’ 1-0 interleague victory in front of an announced 43,505 in Angel Stadium.

Ryan Drese, making his Washington debut after being released by the Texas Rangers last week, gave up two singles in eight shutout innings to outduel Angel ace Bartolo Colon, whose only real blemish during a complete-game eight-hitter was Brian Schneider’s solo home run in the sixth.

Cordero, the former Cal State Fullerton star, struck out Steve Finley, got Bengie Molina to fly to shallow center and struck out Dallas McPherson in the ninth, bringing an end to a highly charged series that featured Angel reliever Brendan Donnelly’s ejection for having pine tar on his glove Tuesday night, a heated exchange between managers Mike Scioscia of the Angels and Frank Robinson of the Nationals, and a bench-clearing incident.

And when it was over, National right fielder Jose Guillen, the former Angel who was suspended for the final eight games of 2004 after an on-field tantrum and clubhouse argument with Scioscia, had a few parting shots for his former manager.

“I don’t really care much for Mike Scioscia,” Guillen said. “I don’t have any respect for him anymore. He is like a piece of garbage.”

Guillen was booed before every at-bat in the series and had to be hauled into the dugout by three teammates during Tuesday night’s altercation, making him an easy villain for Angel fans. That made victories Tuesday and Wednesday all the more sweet for Guillen.

“I’ve never been so happy in my life to win a baseball game as these last two nights,” Guillen said. “We showed them.”

There were no further on-field hostilities Wednesday night between the teams, but detente, this wasn’t.

The fallout from Tuesday continued with a war of words Wednesday, Robinson accusing Scioscia of instigating Tuesday’s fracas by “overreacting” and “crossing a line” and vowing never to forgive the Angel manager, and Guillen saying Scioscia “showed no class -- he was like a ghetto guy going after a Hall of Fame guy.”

Robinson also accused Scioscia of knowing Donnelly had pine tar on his glove and reiterated his assertion that Donnelly had a piece of sandpaper on the mound, charges Scioscia and Donnelly strongly denied.

According to Robinson, while umpires were inspecting Donnelly’s glove, the pitcher “went to the back of the mound where [second baseman] Adam Kennedy was and gave him the sandpaper.”

“I didn’t have any sandpaper, and what [Robinson] said was a ... lie,” said Donnelly, who is expected to receive a 10-day suspension for his infraction. “I don’t know where that came from, what spawned it.”

Said Kennedy: “That was a little surprising.”

Robinson had asked the umpires to check Donnelly’s glove, and after the pitcher was ejected, Scioscia went directly to Robinson and told him, rather forcefully, that “the same way you undress our pitchers, we’re going to undress yours,” Scioscia said. “There was no disrespect or malice.”

Robinson strongly disagreed.

“To me, Scioscia overreacted -- he stepped across the line, and that’s what fueled the whole thing,” Robinson said. “I said, ‘You have no right talking to me like that and saying those things to me.’ I said, ‘Your man is the one who got caught cheating, not me.’ ”

Asked whether defending his players was one of his motivations for approaching Robinson, Scioscia said, “It was probably a combination of some frustration, of making Frank know he wasn’t going to intimidate us, and letting the umpires know we’re going to undress their players on the mound.”

Robinson, who did not duck one question in a 30-minute interview, said that exchange should have been between Scioscia and the umpires, then.

“Why does he have to defend his players to me? Why does he feel like he has to come over to me and challenge me about something he’s going to do?” Robinson said. “He’s showing his players he’s defending them, but with me? He’s off-base. He’s out of line. If he’s going to do that, let him do it with the umpires. Let him kick dirt and look like a maniac out there. That would show the players he’s fighting for them.”

Donnelly admitted he has used pine tar “off and on as needed, not to doctor the ball, but to get a better grip,” he said. Did he consider it cheating? “No,” Donnelly said. “I thought it was a safety issue. I’d rather get a grip on the ball than have it slip out of my hand and hit someone in the head.”

Isn’t that what the rosin bag behind the mound is for, though?

“Rosin, when mixed with sweat or water, creates a sticky film,” Donnelly said, “and I can’t throw the split-fingered fastball with that.”

Does Donnelly believe there are other pitchers who use pine tar?

“My belief,” Donnelly said, “is that a lot of pitchers will go out there with new gloves starting today.”

Times staff writer Ben Bolch contributed to this report.