They Fix It by Being Themselves

Two months ago, it felt like a steam room.

On Tuesday, it felt like a family room.

Players who once glared at each other were now sitting on huge couches next to each other, rumpled and crumb-streaked and joking.

A manager who was once as tight as a tuxedo walked past with his shirt untucked and his smile unbuttoned.

When the clubhouse television showed highlights of infamous on-field temper tantrums, everyone laughed, as if that would never happen here.

The star pitcher spoke Spanish to the star shortstop, who spoke English to the kid second baseman, who spoke baseball to the speedy center fielder.

Then a veteran spoke to me.

“We look like a different team, huh?” said Adam Kennedy.

Well, um, yes.

The last time the average fan looked closely at the Angels, the team was 11 games under .500 and the season was a wreck.

Different lineups every night. Worse lineups every night. Different ways to lose every night.

Six first basemen. Eight designated hitters. Kendry Morales batting cleanup? Kennedy batting leadoff?

A starting pitching staff whose Cy Young winner missed two months, and whose hottest young pitcher was demoted, and whose best two relievers began the season 1-4.

“It looked bad, it looked real bad,” said Orlando Cabrera.

And now?

It’s not only good, it’s real good, the Angels defeating the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday for their 13th win in 14 games, the last-place Angels now just a breath from first place in a division that is eminently winnable.

Their pitching staff is the league’s best, their timely hitting has moved into area code 2002, and Angel Stadium is going ape again.

“So,” Kennedy said, “you want to know what happened, right?”

He shrugged.

That’s the answer.

It’s been the same answer every year since the world championship season, the Angels constantly pulling themselves out of ditches and peeling themselves off windshields simply by, well, being themselves.

Nothing happened. Everything happened.

The best explanation being, Mike Scioscia’s Angels happened.

Cabrera put it another way.

“There’s gamers in here,” he said.

The Angels are filled with them, guys who respect the game and love its big moments, guys such as Kennedy and Cabrera and John Lackey and Francisco Rodriguez and Scot Shields and the slowing-but-steady Garret Anderson and Tim Salmon.

“It’s who we’ve been for several years now,” Kennedy said. “We like the plane flights. We like the clubhouse time. We like the game.”

When they were playing poorly, riddled with injuries and excuses, they lost themselves.

As with all good character teams, a couple of small things brought it all back.

First, Scioscia, doing probably his best job here since arriving in 2000, remained calm.

He benched nobody out of spite. He ripped nobody out of anger. He has juggled 71 lineups in 93 games as if each one were the same group on the same day.

At the end of June, after a loss to the Dodgers, he walked out of his office and reminded his players who they were.

“I told them, you are a team that should expect to win,” he said.

“You should come in here every day thinking only that it is your field, your game, your win.”

The next day, the current streak began.

Juan Rivera has found himself. Maicer Izturis has been a gem. Mike Napoli has been a revelation. Orlando Cabrera has been a leader. Vladimir Guerrero has been, as usual, a beast.

Said Cabrera: “Scioscia is so steady, he keeps us all on the same page, at the same time.”

Second, what Scioscia didn’t fix, the players fixed.

“There’s certain things the managers and coaches can’t do,” said Brendan Donnelly. “There’s things only the players can do.”

Eight Angels rookies have made their major-league debuts this year, and all of them have been either comforted or reprimanded or just plain challenged by the veterans.

Kennedy has made news for scolding Casey Kotchman for not hustling for a foul ball and Chone Figgins for not hustling on the basepaths. Before he was put on the disabled list for an ankle injury, Darin Erstad gave an impromptu clubhouse lecture about being a good teammate.

“We have a couple of incidents, and they have been healthy incidents,” said Scioscia. “We have veterans turning negatives into positives. It’s important that players be allowed to do that.”

What the veterans have not done with their talk, they have shown with their walk.

Their blue-collar hitters have been using every bit of the batters’ box, every inch of the field, moving runners such that in the final days of his mind-bending streak of 63 consecutive games in which he reached base, Cabrera gave himself up.

It was in Seattle, a runner on second, middle of the game, he hit a weak grounder to the right side to move the runner.

He later extended the streak but, afterward, some young teammates couldn’t believe him.

Said Cabrera: “They were like, ‘Man, you’re crazy, why would you hurt your streak like that?’ And I’m like, ‘Man, I just want to make the playoffs.’ ”

Said Scioscia: “With that at-bat, Orlando sent everyone a message.”

So have the Angels.

If Bill Stoneman can add one more middle-of-the-lineup bat in the next couple of weeks, it could be a message that resounds until autumn’s end.

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