Angels Can’t Look Too Far Ahead

By every measure, the Angels’ playoff hopes appear faint, if not altogether futile.

They’re too flawed defensively. Not deep enough offensively. They’ve run themselves out of too many potentially big innings, mistaking foolishness for aggressiveness. Oakland has been too good for too long to buckle now.

And yet ...

The Angels on Monday opened their first September homestand with a 1-0 victory over Baltimore, a significant step toward ensuring that their final homestand against the A’s might mean something.

Jered Weaver’s seven shutout innings and Francisco Rodriguez’s 39th save, coupled with Oakland’s loss to Texas, moved the Angels 6 1/2 games out of first place in the American League West. Their deficit is still imposing, but it’s not impossible to erase.

Ask Tim Salmon. He saw it from the other side in 1995, when the Angels built a 12 1/2 -game lead over Seattle in August but were overtaken by the Mariners and lost a one-game playoff.

“I’ve been on this team when we had a 10-, 11-game lead going into September, so it can happen, as much as people want to write us off or whatever,” he said. “It can happen. The history of the way this club has played the A’s down the stretch, it’s very much within the realm of possibility to make this thing happen.

“But we can’t get too focused or worried about how many games we have to be out when we have our seven games against them in a few weeks. That’s not where our focus needs to be. Our focus needs to be tonight’s game, this series, trying to take two out of three.

“You’ve got to take it a series at a time, a game at a time. Quite honestly, if you think too far ahead, you’re going to miss this opportunity right here.”

Salmon said he sees parallels to the Angels’ 1995 meltdown, with the Angels this time as the hunter instead of the prey.

“We weren’t playing bad baseball,” he said. “We were getting some tough breaks, but the team that was chasing us, Seattle, was playing like Oakland has been. They were just winning every day. We can’t get a break, can’t get any help from other teams.”

Although it may be tempting for the Angels to look ahead to the stretch in which they’ll play seven of their final 10 games against the A’s, it’s pointless. If they don’t win today and tomorrow and the day after that, if they don’t get some help in the next few weeks, those games won’t matter and they’ll have plenty of time to ponder the changes that must be made before next season.

They can’t say they’ve been weakened by injuries this season. They can’t blame bad luck for the task that faces them.

They can look only to themselves for the answers, and they’ve begun to look inward to see if they have the fortitude to make up for their shortcomings. The answer will become apparent before they face the A’s.

“I don’t see them collapsing,” said second baseman Adam Kennedy, whose two-out single in the fourth inning off Rodrigo Lopez on Monday scored Juan Rivera, who had doubled. “They’re definitely going to have to cool off and we’re playing OK, but not great. I don’t see a collapse coming.

“It’s going to have to be close. I think we all understand that, and we’re up for that challenge.”

To get closer, the Angels don’t have to change much, Kennedy said.

“Not to win every game, but there’s games where we have collapses defensively or mentally or we’re just not been executing, and those have to come to a halt or be very rare,” he said.

“It’s going to be hard to be more than a couple games out because they’re such a good team. If someone was to really dominate those seven games it would be a surprise.”

To Angels Manager Mike Scioscia, Monday’s victory was encouraging because Weaver rebounded so impressively after being shelled at Seattle last Tuesday. That the Angels cut a game off Oakland’s lead, Scioscia said, was secondary.

“We’re not looking at the standings,” he said. “The challenge is going to be here, every night. If we play well, we’re going to have an opportunity to win this thing.... We have to play well. There’s no way to sugarcoat that.”

If this turns into a late surge by the Angels, it would be a fine last hurrah for Salmon, who remains firm in his plan to retire after this season.

“The past two years in here celebrating, I’ve been part of it but as a spectator,” said Salmon, who underwent knee surgery in September 2004 and shoulder surgery two months later. “To know that I had a part in putting that team in that position of celebrating again, I’d love to be part of that.”

The Angels, he said, “are not too far removed” from the way they played in July, when they feasted on weak opponents and pulled half a game ahead of the A’s.

“It seems like Oakland has just taken off. Frustrating as that is, that’s kind of out of your hands,” Salmon said. “There’s nothing that we can do if they keep winning.

“That’s where you’ve got to say, ‘It all comes back to us. Focus on today. Worry about winning today’s game and see where it takes us.’ ”

Who knows, it might take them somewhere.