Angels Are Past Break-Even Point

The Angels may hold a long-term lease on the New York Yankees -- they’re the only team with a winning record against them in the Joe Torre era, which dates to 1996 -- but they don’t own them just yet.

The Yankees reasserted themselves Monday night, pushing across the go-ahead run on Alex Rodriguez’s seventh-inning sacrifice fly and busting the game open with a four-run eighth for a 7-2 pasting of the Angels at Yankee Stadium.

Normally, the split of a four-game series in the Bronx is cause for celebration, but not when you’re doing a slow fade in the American League West, your best pitcher has lost three straight starts, your shortstop and No. 3 hitter is struggling on offense and defense, and the frustration -- and fatigue -- of it all is beginning to set in.

“It would be nice if we could get out to a lead and hang on to one,” pitcher John Lackey said after giving up three runs and 11 hits in seven innings, perhaps forgetting the 29 runs the Angels scored in the right-hander’s five July victories.

“The Yankees have a great offense, and you’re not going to go through a game without getting into a situation or two. I thought I minimized damage and gave the team a chance to win. If you want to be a playoff team, you have to figure out how to win games like this.”

Are the Angels a playoff team?

“Yeah,” Lackey said. “There’s time left.”

The Angels had better get moving. Oakland has won four in a row and 15 of 18 after Monday night’s 5-4 victory over Seattle and has opened a 5 1/2 -game lead over the Angels, who are now tied for second place with Texas. The Angels have not gained ground on the A’s since Aug. 1, when they were half a game back.

“This is a tough trip, and it’s going to be tough to make up ground against these teams,” designated hitter Tim Salmon said of a 10-game swing through Chicago, Cleveland, New York and Texas. “Any other time, if you play .500 ball on the road against these teams, you’re doing well. Somebody’s got to cool Oakland, I guess.”

The Angels complete their trip with two games in scorching Texas, where shortstop Orlando Cabrera will get a chance to cool his heels. Manager Mike Scioscia acknowledged that fatigue might be a factor in Cabrera’s shaky play of late and planned to give Cabrera his first day off since July 9 either tonight or Wednesday.

Cabrera, the Angels’ No. 3 hitter, is six for 32 with two runs batted in and one run on the trip and was 0 for 4 Monday. His average has dropped 25 points, from .306 to .281, since he moved from the second to third spot in the order June 27. He also had mental and physical lapses that contributed to the Yankees’ four-run eighth.

After Jorge Posada, who ended an 0-for-25 skid with three hits, led off the eighth with a home run off reliever Brendan Donnelly and Craig Wilson singled, Melky Cabrera dropped a bunt to third baseman Chone Figgins.

Figgins had a play at second and pumped a throw in that direction, but Orlando Cabrera wasn’t on the bag, where he should have been; he was pointing to first. Figgins’ throw to first was not in time.

Later in the inning, after Jason Giambi’s sacrifice fly, Cabrera sat back on a Rodriguez grounder that took a bad hop off his chest and was ruled an RBI single.

“At times, you’re not squaring the ball up as well,” Scioscia said. “It’s not always fatigue, but Orlando is due for a day off, and he will get one.”

Adding to the Angels’ frustration Monday was the fact that they battled back from Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter’s two-run homer in the third to score twice off Randy Johnson in the seventh, tying the score when Jose Molina doubled, Figgins hit a run-scoring single and Howie Kendrick followed with an RBI double, his third hit of the game.

But Johnny Damon (single to left) and Jeter (bunt single) sparked the seventh-inning rally, which gave the Yankees a 3-2 lead, and relievers Kyle Farnsworth and Mariano Rivera blanked the Angels in the eighth and ninth.

Johnson, relying more on off-speed pitches than his fastball, gave up two runs and eight hits in seven innings, striking out five, to improve to 13-9. Included was career strikeout No. 4,500, against Salmon in the fourth.

“It seems like I’ve been a part of his bigger strikeouts,” said Salmon, who whiffed four times against Johnson, the former Seattle ace, in a one-game playoff to determine the 1995 AL West title. “When you’ve been around as long as I have, you’re going to be part of things like that.”