Angels Are Soft Boiled

Don’t let that schedule fool you. The Angels may have seven games this week against last-place Seattle and fourth-place Detroit, while Oakland travels to Cleveland and Boston for seven games against playoff contenders, but those matchups didn’t exactly work in the Angels’ favor Monday night.

The Mariners, motivated to send teammate Dan Wilson out with a victory on the day the veteran catcher announced his retirement, and to avoid mathematical elimination in the American League West, whipped the Angels, 8-1, in Safeco Field.

Seattle right-hander Joel Pineiro limited the Angels to one run and three hits in 7 2/3 innings, after Danny Haren and the A’s had shut out the Indians, 2-0, in Jacobs Field. That win-loss combination trimmed the Angels’ lead in the AL West to one game with 19 games remaining.

The Mariners erased a 1-0 deficit on Richie Sexson’s two-run home run off Angel starter Ervin Santana in the third inning and added two more runs against the rookie right-hander. Then they blew the game open with two runs off reliever Kevin Gregg in the seventh and two more off Greg Jones in the eighth.

The Mariners are 19 games behind the Angels and playing for pride and little else, but sometimes teams like that, with established veterans playing with nothing to lose, can be just as dangerous in September as teams in contention.

“It’s woven into the fabric of baseball -- when you’re not winning yourself, you have an obligation to try to beat the teams you’re playing,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “It’s alive and well.”

The Angel offense seemed alive and well over the weekend, scoring 22 runs in a three-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox, who have the league’s best earned-run average.

The Angels seemed to carry that momentum into Monday night, when Chone Figgins led off the game with a double, took third on Orlando Cabrera’s groundout and scored on Garret Anderson’s sacrifice fly.

But the Angels managed only one more baserunner for the next six innings, Adam Kennedy reaching on a third-inning double, as Pineiro retired 21 of 22 batters by mixing a crisp fastball and tight curve.

Pineiro ran into trouble in the eighth, when the Angels loaded the bases with two outs on a pair of walks and a single, but right-hander J.J. Putz came in to retire Cabrera on a fly to right, preserving a 6-1 lead.

“Pineiro has pitched some good baseball against us, but that’s probably one of the best games I’ve ever seen him pitch,” Scioscia said.

Santana has been giving hitters too many good looks lately, giving up 17 earned runs in 21 1/3 innings of his last four starts. The 22-year-old has thrown 107 innings this season, more than twice as many as the 43 2/3 innings he threw in 2004, and the Angels are wondering if fatigue might be a factor in his recent slide.

“Certainly, that’s something we’re looking at,” Scioscia said. “Did it happen now? Did it happen in his last start? His velocity is good, and at times he’s getting good results. I think he has enough in his tank to do what we need down the stretch.”

The problem: Santana has left his fastball up a little too often, and his breaking pitches have been a bit flat.

“I don’t know if it’s a concern, but his last two starts weren’t as crisp as we’d like to see,” Scioscia said.

Santana pitched out of a two-on, no-out jam in the second, but with Ichiro Suzuki aboard after a single in the third, Santana grooved a fastball to Sexson, who drove it far over the left-center field wall for a two-run home run, giving the Mariners a 2-1 lead and the first baseman 35 homers and 106 runs batted in for the season.

Seattle made it 3-1 on Yorvit Torrealba’s two-out RBI single in the fourth, and 4-1 by pulling off a double steal in the fifth.

With Raul Ibanez at third, Adrian Beltre at first, two outs and Jose Lopez at the plate, Beltre took off for second. When Angel catcher Bengie Molina’s throw went through to second, Ibanez took off for home.

Second baseman Adam Kennedy threw wide to the plate, and Ibanez scored easily.

Ibanez homered and Lopez hit an RBI double in the seventh, and Jeremy Reed’s RBI double and Ibanez’s RBI single highlighted the eighth.