Colon Can’t Do It Alone, and White Sox Win in 11

Bartolo Colon turned 32 Tuesday, and the Angels didn’t exactly shower him with gifts. They got him one run -- nothing new there; the Angels scored 27 runs in Colon’s first nine starts, an average of three a game -- and the right-hander was left to fend for himself the rest of the night.

Colon kept the Angels in it, giving up one run and three hits in seven blue-collar innings, but he couldn’t outduel Chicago White Sox left-hander Mark Buehrle, who gave up one run and four hits in nine innings, and a thinned-out Angel bullpen couldn’t match Chicago’s pitching depth in overtime.

The result was a 2-1 victory for the White Sox in front of an announced 35,182 in Angel Stadium, the winning run scoring in the 11th inning when Joe Crede singled, took second on Juan Uribe’s sacrifice bunt and jogged home on Tadahito Iguchi’s double to left-center against Angel reliever Esteban Yan.

Yan probably wouldn’t have been in the game if Francisco Rodriguez weren’t on the disabled list, but with Brendan Donnelly (scoreless eighth) and Scot Shields (scoreless ninth and 10th) having already pitched, the Angels turned to Yan, who couldn’t hold on.

“But our bullpen wasn’t the issue tonight,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “You can’t ask for much more than what we did; we shut them down for 10 innings and got three zeroes from our bullpen. It was a matter of not getting things going on the offensive side. We didn’t square many balls up all night.”

Indeed, the Angels hit only nine balls to the outfield and went down in order in the 10th and 11th innings against White Sox reliever Damaso Marte.

Both teams threatened in the ninth, putting runners on second with one out, but neither could push across a run to break the 1-1 tie.

Scott Podsednik drew a leadoff walk against Shields in the top of the ninth and took second on Iguchi’s sacrifice. Shields, who has given up one earned run in 18 outings, a span of 23 1/3 innings, threw wild on a pickoff attempt to second, allowing Podsednik to take third.

The Angels brought their infield in, and No. 3 batter Aaron Rowand, a former Cal State Fullerton standout, ripped a hard grounder to the left of shortstop Orlando Cabrera, who gloved the ball and made a strong throw to catcher Bengie Molina to nail Podsednik at the plate. Paul Konerko grounded to second to end the inning.

Chone Figgins led off the bottom of the ninth with a four-pitch walk and took second on Darin Erstad’s bunt. Chicago Manager Ozzie Guillen chose to walk Cabrera intentionally to face Garret Anderson, a career .291 hitter against left-handers.

But Anderson lunged at a first-pitch changeup, popping out to third, and Konerko, the White Sox first baseman, ranged to the line to stop Juan Rivera’s cue shot and recovered in time to flip to Buehrle at the bag to end the inning.

“There’s no doubt in my mind our offense is going to bust out,” Shields said. “We have a good-hitting team. It’s just a matter of time.”

The Angels have a good pitching team too, especially with Colon, who has a 1.49 ERA over his last five starts, on the mound. Though Colon needed 114 pitches -- 80 of them strikes -- to get through seven innings, only one was a mistake, a full-count fastball that Carl Everett ripped into the right-field seats for a solo home run in the second inning.

The Angels countered in the fourth when Figgins singled and took second on Erstad’s groundout. Cabrera, moved from the eighth spot Monday night to the third spot Tuesday because of his .538 career average (seven for 13) against Buehrle, grounded to third for the second out. But Anderson’s run-scoring double tied the score at 1-1.

After Podsednik reached on a fielder’s choice in the third, Colon retired 12 in a row, taming the White Sox with a tailing fastball that broke back over the outside corner to right-handed hitters, a slider and changeup.

“Bart is a bulldog -- we saw that in the second half last year, and it’s carried over to this year,” Shields said. “He’s been lights out. It’s fun to watch him pitch, because he can hit the corners with the best of them.”