With Oakland Lying in Wait, Angels Don’t Fret Over Loss

The eight-game winning streak that aired out a division race succumbed gracelessly Sunday afternoon, so that one could imagine the Oakland Athletics in their clubhouse, wondering if those Angels on television might actually show up in their ballpark.

These were the Angels of fat fastballs, lifeless jogs to first base, a ball heaved into the opposing dugout and a cheapened Rally Monkey, trotted out in a four-run, ninth-inning hole. Nothing sadder than a desperate monkey.

Such are the mini-traumas of six months spent a pitch at a time, winning a few more times than not, playing into a final week with so much to lose, and so much more to gain.

But judging from the previous nine days, you would not have thought they had an 8-4 clunker in them, not with their ace holding the baseball, not with Tampa Bay playing toward last place again, and not with the season’s final week starting in Oakland tonight at 7:05.

The Angels had not given up eight runs in a game since Sept. 15 (another Bartolo Colon start), which was their last loss, the one that set them off on eight wins and provided them an ounce of reassurance, measured by four games in the American League West.

When one of his players was out on a reasonably close play at third, Devil Ray short-timer Lou Piniella hoisted himself from the dugout, made it five steps over the first base line, spread his arms dolefully, turned and went quietly. That was it, his whole argument.

Late September means different things to different organizations, the Angels having learned the distinction three pennant races ago. To them, anymore, it means frantic rushes to first base on routine grounders, because one never knows. To others, it means a shrug and submission, because they do know.

Maybe it means nothing; Derryl Cousins has a reputation as a hitters’ plate umpire, which might have dragged Colon’s pitches to the middle of the strike zone, where they were met by more than a few bat barrels. Garret Anderson has a sore back, Bengie Molina the gait of heavy-legged hopelessness, and neither reached first base on balls misplayed by infielders. The Angels raved about the Devil Rays’ resilience, the way they kept coming, how they pushed the lead out every time they were caught. Good for the Devil Rays.

As is their nature, the Angels were off of it by the time they stood in front of their dugout, waving to the last of the 3,404,686 who had come to see them play this regular season. The majority of the postgame questions were about the A’s, and the four games this week, and not at all about what they’d done lately, or most recently.

“So we lost today,” Darin Erstad said. “Big deal. It just didn’t work out. We’ll crank it up tomorrow and see what happens.”

There is little doubt. They’d found their baseball souls in eight wins, seven of them from behind, striking the memory of an eight-game lead they’d lost midsummer. They’d replaced Anderson and gotten him back in the same streak, had Jarrod Washburn make a start, had Ervin Santana win twice, rediscovered the resolve in their bullpen, and re-warmed their offense.

It all fit. They’d played a game at a time for so long, they’d found the way to win a game at a time. Not forever, maybe. But at least through the Devil Ray series.

“You play enough games,” Erstad said, “things happen.”

All of which leaves the Angels and the A’s, where the AL West so often finds itself this time of year. Last season, it was on the final Saturday. This season, perhaps, might not take as long.

“For all practical purposes, it’s a playoff series coming up,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “It’s all fluid. It can change very quickly.

“That edge is neither here nor there. They have to win, we have to win.”

The Angels will give the ball to John Lackey, and to Santana after that, and then to Paul Byrd, and perhaps to Colon on Thursday. The run differential in the 15 previous games between the Angels and A’s is 13; the last four years, the differential is five -- 295 for the Angels, 290 for the A’s. Ten of the last 17 games were won by a run.

So, they’ll have to find ways to run out all of their ground balls, and to pitch ahead in the count without throwing to the middle of the plate, and to make a throw from third base without endangering the bat boys.

That shouldn’t be so hard. They have done it before. In fact, they’d done it every day for a week and a half.