Don’t Look Now, but Angels Have Arrived

Orlando Cabrera lashed the pitch through a warm wind, raced to first base through an October roar, then pointed to the sky.

Look, here they come, he seemed to be signaling. Angels.

Swooping down they were, returning as we remember them, bunting and blooping and fastening themselves to the backs of the irritated New York Yankees like a wrinkled pinstripe.

The American League division series officially began for the Angels on Wednesday, one game late but right on time, baseball’s peskiest team finding its inner gnat while forging a 5-4 victory over the Yankees to tie the series at one game each.

The mighty Randy Johnson pitches for the Yankees in the Bronx in a pivotal Game 3 of this best-of-five series on Friday. But, for one night anyway, it was hard to imagine that even a Big Unit can overcome all the Angels daring little ones.

“Tonight, you saw our team,” reliever Scot Shields said. “It took a while, but we finally showed up.”

It took one game and five innings, actually, the Angels stumbling through the early moments of Wednesday evening with guys overrunning grounders and guys forgetting to cover second base.

With two out in the top of the fifth inning, the Yankees led 2-0 and had a runner on second and a sharp grounder headed down the third base line.

“It wasn’t pretty, was it?” Adam Kennedy said.

And then, to the 45,150 fans who finally found their noise sticks and their feet, it was beautiful.

It was diving stops and dipping fastballs and perfect bunts and a manager who outsmarted the best player in the game.

It essentially ended with Cabrera’s two-out, two-run, tiebreaking single in the seventh against distracted Yankee starter Chien-Ming Wang, a knock that gave the Angels their first lead of the series at 4-2.

But it started two innings earlier with that sharp grounder down the third base line. Hideki Matsui’s hit should have been a run-scoring double good for a three-run lead that the Angels might not have handled.

But Chone Figgins dove, grabbed it, and threw to first, where Darin Erstad scooped it out of the dust to end the inning.

“I closed my eyes,” said Erstad with a grin.

No, that was everyone else in the room closing their eyes.

Juan Rivera led off the bottom of the inning with a home run to close the gap to 2-1, and now it was the Yankees who were stumbling.

In the sixth, Bernie Williams inexplicably failed to score from second base on a grounder by Jorge Posada that left Erstad and starter John Lackey in knots at first base.

Then, in the bottom of the inning, at 9:08 p.m., the Angels’ series officially started.

That is when Cabrera reached first when Alex Rodriguez seemingly lost a bouncer in the Santa Ana wind at third base.

Vladimir Guerrero’s grounder moved Cabrera to second, then Cabrera scored on Bengie Molina’s two-out line drive up the middle.

Tie score, finally, with the Rally Monkey on the scoreboard and the good cop/bad cop combination of Arte Moreno and Arnold Schwarzenegger leading cheers from the press box.

“We woke everyone up,” Shields said.

Then it was Mike Scioscia’s turn, just a few hours after the manager acknowledged that he put Garret Anderson out of position to catch Robinson Cano’s game-changing line drive in the opener.

This time, nobody questioned his smarts, as he called a pitchout with Rodriguez on first base with none out and big hitters coming up in the top of the seventh inning. And Rodriguez amazingly ran.

Molina threw him out. Scioscia shrugged.

“Sometimes you get lucky,” he said.

Then came the bottom of the seventh, when the Angels were just plain good. It was an inning that could serve as not just inspiration, but an instruction manual.

Against Wang, the rookie starter who finally appeared overwhelmed amid the noise and pressure, Rivera led off the inning with a high bouncer to Jeter.

Rivera stumbled down the line, righted himself, and slid into first just ahead of the throw.

Kids who give up early on grounders, did you see that?

Steve Finley then stepped to the plate and Scioscia ran out to speak to him.

“He said, ‘Get it down,’ Finley said. “I knew what he meant.”

Last October’s Dodger grand slam hero laid down a perfect bunt that Wang threw wide of first base, putting runners on first and second. On the next pitch, Kennedy laid down another perfect bunt that moved the runners to second and third.

Kids who hate to bunt, did you see that?

One out later, Cabrera hit Wang’s first pitch for the Angels first series lead.

Now that they have rediscovered their emotion and execution, it shouldn’t be the last.

But with these guys, you never know.

“It’s never easy, is it?” Shields said. “But we’re used to it. It’s us.”

Welcome back.

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