A Quick Jab Puts Angels on the Ropes

Twenty-four pitches.

Now we know how long it takes to squeeze the life out of a noise stick.

Single, single, single, double.

Now we know how long it takes to drain the red from a shirt, the voice from a city, the flight from an Angel.

The opener of the division series between the Angels and New York Yankees on Tuesday night lasted as long as it takes to navigate Splash Mountain in a Cano.

One-half of an inning, to be exact.

Bartolo Colon grooved, Garret Anderson twisted, Robinson Cano shouted, the Angel Stadium crowd hushed, the Yankees led, the Angels bled, and that was that.

“A pretty big blow,” the Angels’ Adam Kennedy said.

It was a 3-0 blow against a team built for comebacks the way Colon is built for synchronized swimming. It was a quick jab that sent the Angels stumbling for three hours before they finally plopped wearily onto the canvas of a 4-2 final.

Yankees win, Angels wince, and the rationalizations just aren’t rational.

“Everybody around here is talking about how we lost the first game of every series in 2002 and still won it all,” said Darin Erstad. “Well, we lost the first game of last year’s series and got swept.”

If the Angels aren’t worried, they should be.

They spent a week battling for home-field advantage in this five-game series, yet it was wiped out in about 10 minutes.

They were quietly thrilled that Yankee ace Randy Johnson could pitch only in Game 3 of this series, but a loss tonight could make that the Yankee clincher.

They entered the postseason confident in their scrappy hitting and timely running and deep bullpen. But the big early Yankee lead stripped them bare.

Their biggest game of the year so far, and Mike Scioscia was a spectator, Frankie Rodriguez was a prop and their running game consisted almost entirely of batboys chasing down beach balls.

“That first inning really took the air out of the sails around here,” said Jarrod Washburn.

Oh, and before we describe that first inning, here’s one more horrifying reality:

Dodger owner Frank McCourt still has more playoff victories -- one -- than Angel owner Arte Moreno.

“We’re not into just getting here,” said Moreno before the game. “We’re into winning it all.”

Judging from how he followed Troy Percival to the mound, Colon wasn’t listening.

Throwing out the ceremonial first pitch to a well-deserved standing ovation, Percy had better stuff.

Colon retired the first two Yankee hitters, then Cy Young became Sigh Young.

Jason Giambi looked at two pitches and drove one into right field. Gary Sheffield did the same. Hideki Matsui battled for six pitches, including three foul balls, before also driving one into right field.

Bases loaded, two out and what was Colon’s career division series earned-run average before tonight? Oh yeah, 4.08.

Cano -- pronounced Kuh-know -- stepped to the plate for his first postseason at-bat very cool and composed and -- check that.

“I just say, ‘Oh God, this at-bat is my first one, and we’ve got to take a lead,’ ” he said.

He then knocked a ball toward left field, filling the air not just with horsehide, but with the annual Angel postseason question: Is Anderson running hard enough?

Anderson was playing shallow, he turned and ran diagonally toward the line drive, but it outraced him and bounced on the grass and wound up being a double.

So, could Anderson have caught it?

He didn’t stick around afterward to answer that, but Angel coach Ron Roenicke said the combination of his positioning and the ball’s trajectory made it impossible.

“Not many left-handers hit the ball that hard to left field in this park, and he hasn’t been known to hit it that hard to left field, so we had Garret playing in the right place,” Roenicke said. “The ball was a line drive, so that made it really tough. There was not enough loft on it for Garret to run underneath it and catch it.”

From where I was sitting, and from what I saw, it sounded like as good of an explanation as any. And, let’s face it, if that ball had sailed past Steve Finley or Vladimir Guerrero, we’d never be asking these questions.

The double made the score 3-0, which may not sound like a lot. But to a crowd that had watched this team win 14 of its final 16 regular-season games, it was suffocating.

By the time Colon gave up another run in the second inning, the division series felt like a March freeway series, only quieter. Colon’s stuff was just as quiet, as he fooled batters into swinging and missing at only three pitches in the first two innings.

This left it up to an offense that isn’t patient enough to mount comebacks against smart pitchers such as Mike Mussina.

“We don’t care what the score is, we have to keep playing our game,” said Scot Shields.

That was the problem.

Second inning, runners on second and third, two out, Adam Kennedy is ahead 2-and-0 ... then flies the next pitch to left.

“That could have made a big difference,” Kennedy acknowledged.

Fifth inning, Juan Rivera on first, one out, and Kennedy and Chone Figgins both fly out on the first pitch.

Sixth inning, Guerrero on first, two out, Darin Erstad batting ... and Guerrero is thrown out attempting to steal second, ending the inning.

“We have to stay aggressive,” said Scioscia.

It is a theory that worked better in past years when the team had a net full of home run hitters to save them. This was a game Troy Glaus would have loved. Where was Scott Spiezio when you needed him?

By the time the Angels mounted a bit of a ninth-inning rally, there was finally action in the crowd, lots of noise, and, unfortunately, even a Dodger-Stadium-style fight behind home plate.

But then, stepping off the bench, Casey Kotchman popped Mariano Rivera’s third pitch to third baseman Alex Rodriguez to silence the room again.

“It hurts, yeah,” said Erstad, his team needing to end that pain tonight or risk feeling it all winter.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.