No Fear Factor for the Angels

The last time the New York Yankees were seen in these parts, they were sifting through the rubble of another playoff humiliation at the hands of the Angels. Their $25-million-a-year third baseman, after hitting two for 15 with no runs batted in during the five-game division series, was saying he had “played like a dog.”

No, the renovated ballpark down the street from Disneyland has not been the happiest place on Earth for the Yankees, especially in October. They have been bounced from the playoffs twice by the Angels in the last four years, both series-clinching defeats coming in Anaheim.

Six months removed from their latest playoff debacle, six seasons removed from their last championship, the Yankees, with their $198-million payroll, their usual star-studded cast and their pinstriped pedigree of 26 World Series titles and 39 American League pennants, return to Angel Stadium tonight for a three-game series and, once again, the Angels are hardly trembling.

“Our club won’t be intimidated,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “Looking at their talent level, their mystique, you can’t get caught up in that. The games we’ve lost to them over the years were because the Yankees played better, not because we were intimidated. You can’t go on the field intimidated by any team.”

This Angel attitude didn’t begin when Scioscia arrived in 2000. Well before the Angels had emerged as perennial playoff contenders in 2002, they seemed to thrive on playing the Yankees, especially in New York.

Since 1996, the year Joe Torre began managing the Yankees, the Angels are the only team with a winning record against them, 49-48, including a 26-22 mark in Yankee Stadium.

“I can’t even blame it on Scioscia because they were that way before him,” Torre said this week. “Years ago, they beat us with clubs that shouldn’t have beaten us. Right now, they’re legitimate. They do things that keep you from having an easy time, even when you do beat them.”

This year’s Angel team features the 2004 AL most valuable player, Vladimir Guerrero, and the 2005 AL Cy Young Award winner, Bartolo Colon, but the biggest difference between recent Angel teams and the pre-Scioscia models, according to Torre, is the depth and quality of their bullpen.

“What they’ve done under Scioscia is develop a bullpen that really works well with matchup situations,” Torre said. “Usually, when we’re able to get ahead of a starter, we’re going to get to them, especially with the thunder we have. But they can run some people out to the mound. Their right-handers, [Scot] Shields and [Brendan] Donnelly, can get left-handers out, and [closer Francisco] Rodriguez is terrific.”

From 1996 to 2001, most Angel bullpens had one dominant reliever, Troy Percival, but the former closer helped instill in his fellow relievers an attitude of toughness that has lived on long since his departure.

As proof, consider Rodriguez’s quote after the Angels had beaten the Yankees in the division series last October: “We don’t see them as the New York Yankees. We just see them as another team. That’s why we do well against them. We play our game.”

Still, with all-stars at almost every position, the three highest-paid players in the game -- Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Jason Giambi -- the resources to pursue any free agent they want, and professional sport’s most notorious owner in George Steinbrenner, it’s hard to look at the Yankees as just another team.

“They’re not even in our division, but when you play the Yankees, it’s like a playoff series because they’re so built up, and year in and year out, they have the highest payroll,” Donnelly said. “Playing the best always makes it more fun.”

Donnelly would not go so far as to say the Angels had some kind of mental edge over the Yankees because of their success against them.

“I don’t think they’re thinking about the last couple of years,” Donnelly said. “It’s like everyone in our clubhouse. We’re not thinking about what happened the last few years, we’re thinking about [tonight]. You can’t live in the past.”

Added Shields, “They’re a veteran club. They’re able to let go of the past.”

That doesn’t mean they are not motivated by it. Hungry to end a five-year title drought, the Yankees spent another $52 million to upgrade an offense that was already considered one of baseball’s best.

“They pretty much have the same lineup as last year, except they added Johnny Damon, the best leadoff man in the game,” said Angel right-hander Kelvim Escobar, who will start tonight’s home opener. “They always put a good team out there every year. They always find the pieces to make it tougher for you.”

But those pieces, no matter how glitzy and expensive, have produced zero championships in five years, thanks in part to the Angels.

“The Yankee lineup has been scary -- hey, when you have the money, you’re going to bring the players in, and you’re going to have a good team,” said Angel shortstop Orlando Cabrera, who was on the Boston team that beat the Yankees in the 2004 AL championship series. “But that doesn’t mean you’re going to win.”